Can The Phrase 'Tech President' Be Trademarked?
That question is at the core of a complaint that techPresident Editor Micah Sifry has lodged against Michael Arrington and his TechCrunch blog, which on Thursday announced plans for the "TechCrunch Tech President Primaries."
TechCrunch has been interviewing presidential candidates in recent weeks -- the first five to participate were Republicans Mitt Romney and John McCain, and Democrats John Edwards, Mike Gravel and Barack Obama -- and its primaries are running from Dec. 18 to Jan. 18. The site will endorse one candidate from each major party "as the 'Tech President' candidate based on the popular results of reader voting and blog input from our community of technology leaders and entrepreneurs."
Ten specific issues are being emphasized in the primary: network neutrality, immigration and H1-B visas, taxes and Internet taxes, technology education, the "digital divide," identity theft, the mobile spectrum auction scheduled for January, China, intellectual property, and renewable energy.
Ironically, techPresident's Sifry accused TechCrunch of violations in two of those areas -- identity theft (later retracted) and intellectual property -- for allegedly stealing the brand that techPresident has been working to build since it launched in February. Sifry titled his post "TechCrunch Commits Identity Theft."
"Not only are TechCrunch's actions a violation of our copyright, it is an abuse of our name and reputation to claim that they are organizing a 'Tech President Endorsement.'" He added:
We here at TechPresident are covering the presidential election very closely, reporting on and rating how the campaigns are using the web, and doing so in an explicitly nonpartisan way. A claim by any entity, especially a site as widely read as TechCrunch, to be endorsing any candidate as the "Tech President" candidate would be a violation of our purpose and could damage the trust that we have built up with campaign staffers as well as the press as a fair and impartial guide.Arrington is clearly ignoring the fact that we own the name Tech President. He can no more describe what he is doing as a "Tech President endorsement" as we could announce that we are preparing a "Tech Crunch endorsement." This is plain and simple an infringement of our copyright, and an abuse of our name and reputation.
TechCrunch has yet to respond to the allegation on its site or directly to Sifry.
This sounds like a complicated case. For starters, techPresident is registered under a "Creative Commons" license, which is less strict than U.S. copyright law. Intellectual property law also does not offer protection for certain generic phrases. Does "tech president" qualify under these circumstances? Or can TechCrunch claim free-speech rights in inviting its readers to pick the most tech-friendly presidential candidates?
I'm just a journalist asking the questions and not a lawyer capable of answering them. I'm definitely curious to hear what the copyright experts have to say about this controversy.
In an update to his post, Sifry made it sound like the conflict can be resolved rather easily. "Our main goal here is to make clear that what TechCrunch is doing is in no way associated with techPresident," he wrote. "A simple correction or addendum to that effect by Arrington on his blog would go a long way to resolving this."
FlackLife and Global Neighborhoods think TechCrunch needs to respond quicly and appropriately.
"If what [Sifry] is saying is true, you need to 'fess up, work to get them off your throat, and figure out how to preserve what you can of what was an interesting, but flawed, experiment," FlackLife argued. "You have now entered crisis mode. Whether you realize it or not."
UPDATE: Sifry has acknowledged that "even though we have established a brand in the techPresident name, and won a bunch of accolades for our work, lots of people can use the generic phrase 'tech president' as in a president who cares about or 'gets' technology issues."
He now has apologized for accusing TechCrunch of both identity theft and intellectual property theft. But he still contends, "The simple and decent thing for TechCrunch to do is to post some kind of disclaimer, in the relevant places, making clear that its tech president primary and endorsement are not connected to this blog."
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