Question about "Twitter" use in library names

[Duane Roelands]

A question for the Twitter team:

I'm the developer and maintainer of an open source library called
"TwitterVB". Can I expect a nastygram from your lawyers at some
point? Or is there some way I can have the project "vetted" to avoid
such a thing in the future?

[Andy Freeman]

IANAL but you might want to look do a trademark search. Some relevant
links are at http://uspto.gov/ .

[John Meyer]

I don't play a lawyer on TV (it's too small for starters), but the fact
that you aren't making any money off of it and the fact that they're
linking to it with that name bodes pretty well.
http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Terms-of-Service

[Ryan Sarver]

Duane,

We definitely don't want to be sending any "nastygrams", especially for something that helps the community. I put a note into our legal / marks department so that I can get an answer back to you and everyone else. Please bear with us as it could take a bit, but I'll get you an answer.

Best, Ryan

[Ryan Sarver]

Just wanted to follow up with everyone and let you know we are still on this and haven't forgotten about the thread. Hopefully will have an answer for you soon.

Best, Ryan

2009/12/5 Ryan Sarver <rsa...@twitter.com>

[Duane Roelands]

Hopefully, I haven't asked a question with an unfortunate answer.

When I look at the number of great libraries with "Twitter" in the
name, it would be a real kick in the teeth to the developer community.

On Dec 22, 12:09 am, Ryan Sarver <rsar...@twitter.com> wrote:
> Just wanted to follow up with everyone and let you know we are still on this
> and haven't forgotten about the thread. Hopefully will have an answer for
> you soon.
>
> Best, Ryan
>

> 2009/12/5 Ryan Sarver <rsar...@twitter.com>

>
> > Duane,
>
> > We definitely don't want to be sending any "nastygrams", especially for
> > something that helps the community. I put a note into our legal / marks
> > department so that I can get an answer back to you and everyone else. Please
> > bear with us as it could take a bit, but I'll get you an answer.
>
> > Best, Ryan
>

[Duane Roelands]

It's been four weeks since I originally asked this question. Is there
any chance at all it will be answered in the near future?

The time it takes to get a simple straight answer is mind-boggling.

On Dec 22 2009, 11:14 am, Duane Roelands <duane.roela...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[John Meyer]

We're talking about lawyers here Duane. "Straight forward" is not a
term that they understand.

[Ryan Sarver]

Duane,

I've been able to follow up with our lawyers and they confirmed that it is ok to include "Twitter" in the name of libraries that developers build. Sorry it took so long to follow up, but I wanted to make sure we got a strong, final answer back before responding.

Best, Ryan

[DeWitt Clinton]

That's great news.  Thank you, Ryan.

How about terms like "tweet" and "retweet"?  Or more generally, any word on the questions raised in the "Question about licensing" thread?

  http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk/browse_thread/thread/9f90046f6469fb7b/954f6dc75e00e992

In particular, it would be great to get clarification in writing on twitter.com -- not sure if your mail here is binding :) -- about the terms for acceptable trademark usage, copyright claims, and patent claims, for third party libraries and third party implementations of the Twitter API.  

I fully understand that these are difficult questions, and certainly appreciate the effort it takes to get all the legal concerns addressed.  Thanks again for chasing these down! 

-DeWitt

[Rich]

Tweet appears to have been answered here http://blog.twitter.com/2009/07/may-tweets-be-with-you.html

On Jan 13, 7:51 pm, DeWitt Clinton <dclin...@gmail.com> wrote:
> That's great news.  Thank you, Ryan.
>
> How about terms like "tweet" and "retweet"?  Or more generally, any word on
> the questions raised in the "Question about licensing" thread?
>

> http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk/browse_thread...

>
> In particular, it would be great to get clarification in writing on
> twitter.com -- not sure if your mail here is binding :) -- about the terms
> for acceptable trademark usage, copyright claims, and patent claims, for
> third party libraries and third party implementations of the Twitter API.
>
> I fully understand that these are difficult questions, and certainly
> appreciate the effort it takes to get all the legal concerns addressed.
>  Thanks again for chasing these down!
>
> -DeWitt
>

> On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 10:48 AM, Ryan Sarver <rsar...@twitter.com> wrote:
> > Duane,
>
> > I've been able to follow up with our lawyers and they confirmed that it is
> > ok to include "Twitter" in the name of libraries that developers build.
> > Sorry it took so long to follow up, but I wanted to make sure we got a
> > strong, final answer back before responding.
>
> > Best, Ryan
>

[DeWitt Clinton]

Right, I agree that the public statements (both Biz's post and Ryan's comment here) are all aligned with what we expected and asked for.  I'm simply encouraging and hoping for the Terms to be updated to reflect that position and remove the ambiguity for library, client, and service authors.  Doubly important now that third parties are going so far as to implement their own backends for the Twitter API itself, especially with respect to patent and copyright (for the docs).

BTW, here is what the Terms (http://twitter.com/tos) currently read, "effective: September 18, 2009":

All right, title, and interest in and to the Services (excluding Content provided by users) are and will remain the exclusive property of Twitter and its licensors. The Services are protected by copyright, trademark, and other laws of both the United States and foreign countries. Nothing in the Terms gives you a right to use the Twitter name or any of the Twitter trademarks, logos, domain names, and other distinctive brand features. Any feedback, comments, or suggestions you may provide regarding Twitter, or the Services is entirely voluntary and we will be free to use such feedback, comments or suggestions as we see fit and without any obligation to you.

Biz's post was written July, 2009, so if you just take it at face value, the most recent Terms actually supersede his statement.  Again, I'm personally reasonably confident that wasn't the intention, hence these ongoing threads on the developer list.

-DeWitt

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

On Jan 14, 8:04 am, DeWitt Clinton <dclin...@gmail.com> wrote:
> BTW, here is what the Terms (http://twitter.com/tos) currently read,
> "effective: September 18, 2009":
>
> > All right, title, and interest in and to the Services (excluding Content
> > provided by users) are and will remain the exclusive property of Twitter and
> > its licensors. The Services are protected by copyright, trademark, and other
> > laws of both the United States and foreign countries. Nothing in the Terms
> > gives you a right to use the Twitter name or any of the Twitter trademarks,
> > logos, domain names, and other distinctive brand features. Any feedback,
> > comments, or suggestions you may provide regarding Twitter, or the Services
> > is entirely voluntary and we will be free to use such feedback, comments or
> > suggestions as we see fit and without any obligation to you.
>
> Biz's post was written July, 2009, so if you just take it at face value, the
> most recent Terms actually supersede his statement.  Again, I'm personally
> reasonably confident that wasn't the intention, hence these ongoing threads
> on the developer list.
>
> -DeWitt

In general, the "legal advice" I have received from the IP attorneys I
hang out with (in the Portland, Oregon startup community) on such
matters is:

a. Make sure you have your organization structure work done first (C-
corp, S-corp, LLC, etc.). Sole proprietorships / partnerships and
intellectual property don't in general mix very well.
b. Create unique stuff wherever possible, like "Xobni" ("Inbox"
spelled backwards) rather than "BuzzTrack for Outlook".
c. Hire an attorney and *listen* to what they advise you to do! Dave
Frishberg's "My Attorney Bernie" is the standard reference. ;-)

Silly crap happens - like Apple Computer vs. Apple Records, the
University of Oregon having to pay money to Disney for a duck logo
that looks sorta like Donald, etc.

So, even if Biz says it's OK, I personally wouldn't use "tweet"
anywhere that a generic word like "message" would suffice, for
example. I wouldn't use "Twit" or "Tweep" or "Tw"-anything. And I
wouldn't use anything avian at all.

--
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky
http://borasky-research.net/smart-at-znmeb

"A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems." ~ Paul
Erdős