MaxMind trademark trolling – they own “geoip”?
imgur.com
imgur.com
Not trolling. That's their IP. I wouldn't fight that fight.
Doesn't everyone say "geoip" though? / how else would we describe such a service? I thought there was something against trademarking commonly used words that describe generic things.
No plans to fight it. But it seems brutal... considering geoip.app is free/open-source/non-commercial, links to their site for those interested in licensing more accurate data, and "geoip" seems to be in use elsewhere (e.g. geoip.com).
IP-based Geolocation? There are multiple portmanteaus that can be made from the phrase; you could use one of those instead of using the one they made.
The term "IP address geolocation" is common and descriptive enough, and isn't trademarked. The mark "GeoIP" is MaxMind's trademark for their particular IP geolocation service, and isn't something you can use just because you're familiar with the term, regardless of if the application is free/open source/whatever.
While you likely mean well, MaxMind has a legal and practical obligation to defend their mark, which means issuing C&Ds for people who are using it without a license to do so.
> Everyone says "Google" to mean "do an internet search". It's still a registered trademark and you can't promote your own product using that name.
You're right, but there are counterexamples. [I'm not a lawyer but...] There is such a thing as a "generic trademark" where former trademarks like "Escalator", "Thermos", "Hovercraft", "Videotape", "Teleprompter", "Aspirin" etc. have been "genericized".
Apparently Google won their lawsuit because "Google" is a very distinctive word.
For me "geoip" felt/sounded generic and I see a lot of geolocation plugins and services using the term in their names, descriptions, etc.
The list of ‘nope, still protected’ is longer, including Kleenex and bubble wrap.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_generici...
And contrary to Wikipedia, I think you’ll find only Thermos gets away with Thermos.
The term geoip is certainly theirs. While we offered competing techniques built into our service, they were the first I heard use that. Then everyone subscribed their DB and called it that.
GEOIP.COM
Creation Date: 2000-04-07T17:58:45Z
Registration Date: October 26, 2004