Author Topic: Symbiostock Trademark owner Robin Murarka ? (Read 16292 times)

r2d2 · « **on:** May 15, 2015, 01:37 »

https://trademarks.justia.com/866/21/symbiostock-86621725.html

Symbistock is now owned by a single person. Goodbye independence!
Even if it should be successful it is now easy for the big Agencies to buy Symbiostock and close it.

I think Symbiostock now is death.

marquixHD · « **Reply #1 on:** May 15, 2015, 06:02 »

Quote from: r2d2 on May 15, 2015, 01:37

https://trademarks.justia.com/866/21/symbiostock-86621725.html

Symbistock is now owned by a single person. Goodbye independence!
Even if it should be successful it is now easy for the big Agencies to buy Symbiostock and close it.

I think Symbiostock now is dead.

the trademark registration process has been opened, now there will be a period where everyone using Symbiostock on their sites can file a dispute and prove prior use of the trademark.

Also note that ONLY the new Symbio-Plugin version and only this particular WP Plugin under that specific name (IF registration is successful at all) will be affected and/or vulnerable to agency buyout and similar!

Anyone traveling in the overall direction of the Theme-based solution will be just fine.

Kenny · « **Reply #2 on:** May 15, 2015, 09:25 »

Some good came out of the SymbioStock trademark. Murarka, which means Flu and Head Cold in Hausa.

Robin Murarka
https://www.robinmurarka.com/biography

Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Akin-Robin-Murarka/dp/0992440408/

Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/robinmurarka/info?tab=page_info

Twitter
https://twitter.com/robinmurarka

Writing forums
http://www.writingforums.com/archive/index.php/t-140799.html

Symbio Stock
http://symbiostock.com/about/
http://www.symbiostock.org/about/

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #3 on:** May 15, 2015, 09:49 »

I don't know anything about trademark application rules, but reading through the seemingly endless description of where this trademark applies, it includes:

"... Software for processing images, graphics and text;..."

Isn't that so broad and general that he can't succeed?

Mostly I'd like to ignore him, but I don't plan to change my site right now, so I don't want to alter the references to Symbiostock that I have. There's no sliced-up hummingbird anywhere on mine though, so perhaps it doesn't matter?

cascoly · « **Reply #4 on:** May 15, 2015, 21:04 »

he's already LIED in his application --

First Use Anywhere Date

2012-12-02

First Use In Commerce Date

2012-12-02

==================
his claim is for the hummingbird mark & name, and that didn't appear until recently - so he's claiming the trademark for the 2 years he had nothing to do with symbiostock

noodle · « **Reply #5 on:** May 15, 2015, 21:50 »

Does anyone think that Leo has to some extent be culpable for this?
after all he must have agreed to some deal with Robyn - whether that was for a monetary gain or otherwise.

this whole thing seems like a big convoluted mess...

i still have my legacy site, it functions, but its a far cry from what we were all led to beleive it would become - and hoped it would become.

r2d2 · « **Reply #7 on:** May 16, 2015, 04:56 »

Quote from: Robin@Symbiostock on May 16, 2015, 03:55

Let's examine an open source project without trademark protection:

1) Symbiostock 1.0 is released. As it is licensed under the GNU, anyone can use the code and even sell it.
2) A group of black-hatters take Symbiostock, add malicious code to it in order to collect passwords
3) They release Symbiostock 2.0, call it Symbiostock 2.0, and advertise on Google Adwords using the name Symbiostock 2.0.
4) Users, just like you, purchase Symbiostock 2.0, your passwords are extracted, your sites are hacked, and all your full resolution images show up on free sites.
5) The group of black-hatters stop advertising, close up shop, and disappear.
6) You come to the original developers and want to know why they let this happen.
7) They respond by saying that without trademark protection, they could not legally prevent the sale of Symbiostock 2.0.

This is just one of the reasons why Symbiostock, and other open source organizations such as:

WordPress: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:4ow9iu.2.9
CentOS: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:4ow9iu.3.2
Linux: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:4ow9iu.4.12
Debian: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:4ow9iu.5.1
WooCommerce: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:4ow9iu.11.1
MySQL: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:4ow9iu.7.5
phpMyAdmin: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:4ow9iu.8.7

All have registered trademarks. It has very little to do with end users.

Robin.

You try to register Symbiostock to make profit and the problem is that "Symbiostock"is in public use for years before you come.
You can protect Symzio or maby Robinstock but you try to use the free word "Symbiostock" and his good reputation for your own profit.
Many of us promote and use Symbiostock this we did for our independence and the free Symbiostock not for the company Robin Murarka.
You want to protect anyone. In my view you are also not a benefactor or contributor. You try it with anonymity, blocking, ignoring and censoring.
Sorry Robin in my view you are not a contributor you are just a worse businessmen.

Maby you should try it with honesty and transparency.

marquixHD · « **Reply #8 on:** May 16, 2015, 06:00 »

Quote from: Robin@Symbiostock on May 16, 2015, 03:55

Let's examine an open source project without trademark protection:

1) Symbiostock 1.0 is released. As it is licensed under the GNU, anyone can use the code and even sell it.
2) A group of black-hatters take Symbiostock, add malicious code to it in order to collect passwords
3) They release Symbiostock 2.0, call it Symbiostock 2.0, and advertise on Google Adwords using the name Symbiostock 2.0.
4) Users, just like you, purchase Symbiostock 2.0, your passwords are extracted, your sites are hacked, and all your full resolution images show up on free sites.
5) The group of black-hatters stop advertising, close up shop, and disappear.
6) You come to the original developers and want to know why they let this happen.
7) They respond by saying that without trademark protection, they could not legally prevent the sale of Symbiostock 2.0.

This is just one of the reasons why Symbiostock, and other open source organizations such as:

WordPress: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:4ow9iu.2.9
CentOS: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:4ow9iu.3.2
Linux: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:4ow9iu.4.12
Debian: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:4ow9iu.5.1
WooCommerce: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:4ow9iu.11.1
MySQL: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:4ow9iu.7.5
phpMyAdmin: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:4ow9iu.8.7

All have registered trademarks. It has very little to do with end users.

Robin.

let us also examine a bit further: on that nice list regurgitated up there, NO ONE is on record to have had THE AUDACITY OF FILING LIES about the "use in commerce" or any other portion...

Quite familiar with WordPress, for example, I cannot seem to remember that they even laid claim to Slash.org (their very own grandfather application), let alone made any fraudulent and untruthful claims to others' software. So it should be noted that THAT is how Open Source is done (even when it comes to trademarking etc).

The applicant for the Symbiostock trademark, on the other hand, makes false claims, and this should be investigated in the trademark dispute procedure!

On another note and in order to clarify it "has little to do with end users", a provision to that effect and providing for legacy-Theme-Symbiostockers to continue what constitutes prior use of any trademark anyway needs to be included. But it isn't there. Please correct and amend this no later than 22 May 2015, Robin. Thank you.

r2d2 · « **Reply #9 on:** May 16, 2015, 06:13 »

Quote from: Robin@Symbiostock on May 16, 2015, 03:55

Let's examine an open source project without trademark protection:

1) Symbiostock 1.0 is released. As it is licensed under the GNU, anyone can use the code and even sell it.
2) A group of black-hatters take Symbiostock, add malicious code to it in order to collect passwords
3) They release Symbiostock 2.0, call it Symbiostock 2.0, and advertise on Google Adwords using the name Symbiostock 2.0.
4) Users, just like you, purchase Symbiostock 2.0, your passwords are extracted, your sites are hacked, and all your full resolution images show up on free sites.
5) The group of black-hatters stop advertising, close up shop, and disappear.
6) You come to the original developers and want to know why they let this happen.
7) They respond by saying that without trademark protection, they could not legally prevent the sale of Symbiostock 2.0.

And with a registred trademark in your protecting property the "black-hatters" will not do that?

Do "black hatters" respect the copyright of a trademark?
What a nonsense Robin.

marquixHD · « **Reply #10 on:** May 16, 2015, 06:23 »

Quote from: r2d2 on May 16, 2015, 06:13

Quote from: Robin@Symbiostock on May 16, 2015, 03:55
Let's examine an open source project without trademark protection:

1) Symbiostock 1.0 is released. As it is licensed under the GNU, anyone can use the code and even sell it.
2) A group of black-hatters take Symbiostock, add malicious code to it in order to collect passwords
3) They release Symbiostock 2.0, call it Symbiostock 2.0, and advertise on Google Adwords using the name Symbiostock 2.0.
4) Users, just like you, purchase Symbiostock 2.0, your passwords are extracted, your sites are hacked, and all your full resolution images show up on free sites.
5) The group of black-hatters stop advertising, close up shop, and disappear.
6) You come to the original developers and want to know why they let this happen.
7) They respond by saying that without trademark protection, they could not legally prevent the sale of Symbiostock 2.0.

And with a registred trademark in your protecting property the "black-hatters" will not do that? ;D
Do "black hatters" respect the copyright of a trademark?
What a nonsense Robin.

exactly, @r2d2. This on top ;)

In order to defend legacy-Symbiostockers' rights and interests against any kind of unlawful limitation, they ought to focus on disputing and overall preventing the registration of what might turn out to be a stolen trademark.

cthoman · « **Reply #11 on:** May 16, 2015, 11:14 »

I think I'm failing to see what the big outrage is here. I'll admit I haven't been following all the developments going on with Symbiostock, but somebody still needs to run the ship or you'll wake up one day with your site in flames and trying to pick up the pieces. I'm speaking from experience.

klsbear · « **Reply #12 on:** May 16, 2015, 11:30 »

It is not unusual to see a trademark granted where the registrant is granted the trademark with specific total usage in a logo but does not claim any exclusive rights to a more general term included in that name.

Look up "Books" in a trademark search and you will see the word incorporated into several phrases and will often see a disclaimer that there is no claim on the word "Books" outside of its use in the total mark.

Best case scenario for all would be for Robin to be granted the mark as shown, with the hummingbird image, with the disclaimer that no claim on the word Symbiostock is made apart from it's use with the hummingbird image. That allows him to protect and offer users some assurance that the official versions are those with the hummingbird (not that it would stop thieves but at least it offers a point of distinction). It would still allow legacy users to use the word Symbiostock as a stand-alone word without the hummingbird.

cascoly · « **Reply #13 on:** May 16, 2015, 13:21 »

Quote from: Robin@Symbiostock on May 16, 2015, 03:55

Let's examine an open source project without trademark protection:

1) Symbiostock 1.0 is released. As it is licensed under the GNU, anyone can use the code and even sell it.
2) A group of black-hatters take Symbiostock, add malicious code to it in order to collect passwords
3) They release Symbiostock 2.0, call it Symbiostock 2.0, and advertise on Google Adwords using the name Symbiostock 2.0.
4) Users, just like you, purchase Symbiostock 2.0, your passwords are extracted, your sites are hacked, and all your full resolution images show up on free sites.
5) The group of black-hatters stop advertising, close up shop, and disappear.
6) You come to the original developers and want to know why they let this happen.
7) They respond by saying that without trademark protection, they could not legally prevent the sale of Symbiostock 2.0.

This is just one of the reasons why Symbiostock, and other open source organizations such as:

WordPress: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:4ow9iu.2.9
CentOS: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:4ow9iu.3.2
Linux: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:4ow9iu.4.12
Debian: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:4ow9iu.5.1
WooCommerce: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:4ow9iu.11.1
MySQL: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:4ow9iu.7.5
phpMyAdmin: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:4ow9iu.8.7

All have registered trademarks. It has very little to do with end users.

Robin.

robin, I've used wordpress . I know wordpress. wordpress is a friend of mine. robin, you're no wordrpress

what you fail to remember (or disclose in your trademark application ) is that in each of the cases you cite the trademark was applied for as part of the original development, not 2 years AFTER the name was in common use. none of those trademarks were registered by a latecomer who had no history with the development and use of the mark

your claim in your EULA and trademark pages has a direct effect on end users - it would prevent those users from using the symbiostock name on existing sites and applications and themes

in fact YOUR existing plans for monetizing symbiostock are EXACTLY the sort of worst case you describe above!

leo made it clear in many postings here in the forum that symbiostock was NOT TO BE TRADEMARKED and could be freely used by anyone

cascoly · « **Reply #14 on:** May 16, 2015, 13:26 »

Quote from: cthoman on May 16, 2015, 11:14

I think I'm failing to see what the big outrage is here. I'll admit I haven't been following all the developments going on with Symbiostock, but somebody still needs to run the ship or you'll wake up one day with your site in flames and trying to pick up the pieces. I'm speaking from experience.

robin has already declared he WILL NOT support legacy sites beyond providing a way to migrate to his proprietary, as yet untested software, and his vaporware search engine

leo otoh has said he will support existing symbiostock sites against problems arising from wp changes, and he has proven to be reliable in doing so

cthoman · « **Reply #15 on:** May 16, 2015, 15:10 »

Quote from: cascoly on May 16, 2015, 13:26

Quote from: cthoman on May 16, 2015, 11:14
I think I'm failing to see what the big outrage is here. I'll admit I haven't been following all the developments going on with Symbiostock, but somebody still needs to run the ship or you'll wake up one day with your site in flames and trying to pick up the pieces. I'm speaking from experience.

robin has already declared he WILL NOT support legacy sites beyond providing a way to migrate to his proprietary, as yet untested software, and his vaporware search engine

leo otoh has said he will support existing symbiostock sites against problems arising from wp changes, and he has proven to be reliable in doing so

Ah, I see. That was already a problem anyway. I don't have a big problem with paying or someone monetizing the software as long as it is going to be stable and maintained. I guess I'll probably just have to research where I put my time and resources for the future. Abandonware seems to be a big issue with self-hosted solutions.

lex-icon · « **Reply #16 on:** May 16, 2015, 15:20 »

Quote from: cthoman on May 16, 2015, 15:10

Quote from: cascoly on May 16, 2015, 13:26
Quote from: cthoman on May 16, 2015, 11:14

robin has already declared he WILL NOT support legacy sites beyond providing a way to migrate to his proprietary, as yet untested

Abandonware seems to be a big issue with self-hosted solutions.

yes, that is an issue, but AFAIK that only goes for the non-supportive part Robin is playing with the new-Plugin Symbiostock but not for the legacy-Theme nor for the up and coming grfx Plugin for WP brought forward by Leo!

cathyslife · « **Reply #17 on:** May 16, 2015, 17:53 »

Quote from: lex-icon on May 16, 2015, 15:20

yes, that is an issue, but AFAIK that only goes for the non-supportive part Robin is playing with the new-Plugin Symbiostock but not for the legacy-Theme nor for the up and coming grfx Plugin for WP brought forward by Leo!

Actually, there was a lot of abandonment going on way before Robin came on the scene. Maybe you are only hearing/seeing one side of the story? SY was abandoned by Leo about 1-2 years ago. Lots of temper tantrums, disappearing developers and disappearing forums. The whole drama played itself out here on this forum. Then the drama continued on the SY forum, but i wasnt involved then, as i switched to different software. I suppose that forum has disappeared by now though.

farbled · « **Reply #18 on:** May 16, 2015, 18:27 »

Quote from: cathyslife on May 16, 2015, 17:53

Quote from: lex-icon on May 16, 2015, 15:20

yes, that is an issue, but AFAIK that only goes for the non-supportive part Robin is playing with the new-Plugin Symbiostock but not for the legacy-Theme nor for the up and coming grfx Plugin for WP brought forward by Leo!

Actually, there was a lot of abandonment going on way before Robin came on the scene. Maybe you are only hearing/seeing one side of the story? SY was abandoned by Leo about 1-2 years ago. Lots of temper tantrums, disappearing developers and disappearing forums. The whole drama played itself out here on this forum. Then the drama continued on the SY forum, but i wasnt involved then, as i switched to different software. I suppose that forum has disappeared by now though.

Cathy might be right about part of this, but I had my Sym site from the very beginning and I never had any problems with the actual software and kept my site up and running on a few domains until I recently switched over to GRFX. If you're just looking for free/open source software, I've tried so many (Opencart, Prestashop, etc) and I still put the old Sym and new GRFX at the top. No idea about the new Sym though.

Pilens · « **Reply #19 on:** May 16, 2015, 21:49 »

Abandonware? - Not Symbiostock (the good old one) in my books. At one (maybe several) point(s) Leo quit developing the old theme when it became apparent that it was too much of a burden for him with too little return. He always promised that he would take care in case WP update would cause trouble and such. I think that never happened during more than a year because (the old) Symbiostock has proven to be so stable. This is true at least for my symbio site.
I am not in any hurry at all to switch to new symbio or grfx. There's is actually no reason. So far none of the new plugins provide any feature superior to the old theme, except, maybe, the VAT compliance that woo provides. Not good enough of a reason for me as a Canadian.
If I wanted to start self-hosting right now and couldn't wait a few months to see how this forum drama about new symbio and grfx pans out I'd go with Leo and grfx because of his good track record and reliability as opposed to Robin who chooses to be a mystery man.

Just my 2 cents.

Lizard · « **Reply #20 on:** May 17, 2015, 07:26 »

Quote from: Robin@Symbiostock on May 16, 2015, 03:55

Let's examine an open source project without trademark protection:

1) Symbiostock 1.0 is released. As it is licensed under the GNU, anyone can use the code and even sell it.
2) A group of black-hatters take Symbiostock, add malicious code to it in order to collect passwords
3) They release Symbiostock 2.0, call it Symbiostock 2.0, and advertise on Google Adwords using the name Symbiostock 2.0.
4) Users, just like you, purchase Symbiostock 2.0, your passwords are extracted, your sites are hacked, and all your full resolution images show up on free sites.
5) The group of black-hatters stop advertising, close up shop, and disappear.
6) You come to the original developers and want to know why they let this happen.
7) They respond by saying that without trademark protection, they could not legally prevent the sale of Symbiostock 2.0.

Robin.

Well thats only one probable case...but...

What about totally opposite positive symbiostock scenario that has at least same possibility as the one you wrote ?

How can you be sure that somewhere in time a person or a group of people who are going to do a great job for all sides will not show up ?

WendyT · « **Reply #21 on:** May 17, 2015, 21:51 »

If Robin gets TM of the Symbiostock name then where does that leave the present users of the Symbio plug-in?

cascoly · « **Reply #22 on:** May 18, 2015, 18:14 »

Quote from: WendyT on May 17, 2015, 21:51

If Robin gets TM of the Symbiostock name then where does that leave the present users of the Symbio plug-in?

as prior usage, he shouldnt be granted the trademark in the first place given the hundreds of symbiostock sites, 2 years of messaging in this forum alone about an untrademarked symbiostock and multiple existing domains; he claims he doesn't want to interfere with existing sites, but his docs indicate he's trying to monetize everything he can

Shelma1 · « **Reply #23 on:** May 18, 2015, 18:58 »

I also don't understand the outrage. Leo signed over the "rights" in one way or another, and handed the Symbiostock "name" to Robin. So why wouldn't he want to protect that with a trademark? It was the first thing I suggested when I signed up for "legacy" Symbio. As far as monetization goes, if someone's going to spend tons of time developing something, he/she deserves to be paid for it. Leo's original approach to monetization was developing "pro" versions and other add-ons that cost money, and now both developers seem to think charging for hosting will do the trick.

I do think both guys will have to look for customers outside of this forum, because many, many bridges have been burned here at MSG.

cascoly · « **Reply #24 on:** May 19, 2015, 14:20 »

Quote from: Shelma1 on May 18, 2015, 18:58

I also don't understand the outrage. Leo signed over the "rights" in one way or another, and handed the Symbiostock "name" to Robin. So why wouldn't he want to protect that with a trademark?....

robin WANTS to have the trademark, but leo declared many times that he opposed trademark status for the word symbiostock and actively encouraged others to use the brand openly and without limits

what leo sold to robin did NOT include any trademark rights

the 'outrage' is having someone come in and try to claim as his the work that dozens of people did over 2 years time -- if robin had recognized that from the beginning he could have avoided most of the negativity he's now attracted. I supported robin's initial efforts until he made it clear he was not interested in working with anyone who disagreed with him and started censoring, then blocking, legitimate questions on the sym forums

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Author Topic: Symbiostock Trademark owner Robin Murarka ? (Read 16292 times)

r2d2

marquixHD

Kenny

Jo Ann Snover

cascoly

noodle

Symbiostock Official

r2d2

marquixHD

r2d2

marquixHD

cthoman

klsbear

cascoly

cascoly

cthoman

lex-icon

cathyslife

farbled

Pilens

Lizard

WendyT

cascoly

Shelma1

cascoly

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