Mojo Mail changes Name to DaDa Mail

[Guest LilBambi]

Justin Simoni Announces New Name For Mailing List Manager, Turns Programming Project into Art

Justin Simoni announced today the immediate release of Dada Mail, (formerly Mojo Mail). Justin states, "I have had to change the name of my celebrated program due to legal issues with Mediaplex Inc. which holds the trademark for MOJO Mail."He continues, "Not that I'm real happy about the name change at all. This particular program came out initially in December of 1999, with its first stable release in January of 2000. I'm having a really hard time understanding why it took Mediaplex Inc. more than three years to get in contact with me."According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office's website ( http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=...&entry=76154709 ), the "MOJO MAIL" mark was registered to Mediaplex Inc. on November 12th, 2002."This is obviously big guy versus little guy and this particular David doesn't see much reason in pursuing the matter in the legal system." Instead, Justin has complied with Mediaplex's demands to change the name of his program. "The decision to comply was simple: Mediaplex has lawyers, I sleep on a borrowed couch in a basement apartment. It's a red velvet couch - but still."

This is all very annoying! I downloaded the freeware/open source Mojo Mail the first year the program was released as a 'stable release' 3 years ago. MediaPlex was only starting out themselves in 1999 when Justin's Mojo Mail was first released in beta.They say on their MediaPlex site:

1999-2003 Mediaplex, Inc. All rights reserved. Mediaplex®, MOJO®, and the Mediaplex logo are trademarks or service marks of Mediaplex, Inc.

This statement is misleading since it would make it appear that they had MOJO® since 1999 as well but they only registered the MOJO® trademark at the end of 2002.Justin changed the name in response to MediaPlex claimed trademark infringement as noted here on Justin's Project Page:

This Art Project was renamed Dada Mail in November of 2003. It was, beginning in December of 1999, called Mojo Mail. But, for legal reasons the name was dropped. A company that has a very similar product named MOJO Mail seem to think that this project infringed on their Trademark.

I have emailed my objections to this whole thing to the email address listed on the patent page: TrademarkAssistanceCenter@uspto.gov:

To Whom it may concern,I was under the obviously mistaken impression that any patent and trademark name requests had to be unique and not currently being used by any other company, particularly in the market to which it would be a direct competitor.I have been downloading MOJO MAIL by Justin Simoni since 2000. It was originally released in beta in 1999, the same year Mediaplex® registered their Mediaplex® name. They did not register the MOJO® name until the end of last year. Filing date: 2000-10-25, registration granted: 2002-11-12 according to your patent site page information:http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=...&entry=76154709Does no one check on these things or do they just decide that some little guy couldn't afford to hire a lawyer to fight such a trademark infringement accusation?I know you all work very hard at the USPTO, but this is an injustice that just can't be left alone. Did anyone at the USPTO even contact Justin Simone or even do a simple Google search on "Mojo Mail" prior to granting this apparently erroneous trademark registration? Justin said that MediaPlex took three years to get in touch with him. And then it was a cease and desist order on 'their' registered trademark.If there is any way you can fix this, I would strongly suggest you do so.I am posting this injustice wherever I can on the Internet. MediaPlex should not be allowed to get away with this.Thank you for your time,Fran Parkerbackground located here:http://mojo.skazat.com/project/press_relea...e_12_01_03.htmlhttp://mojo.skazat.com/project/c: contact@justinsimoni.com dada@skazat.com

I get so tired of the sue happy condition in this country.

[nlinecomputers]

He who has the biggest lawyer wins. Trademarks have to be defended and fought for else you can loose them. But if you are a opensource vendor and make no money off the product then you can't earn enough money to defend against a trademark poacher who has more money(and thus bigger lawyers) The sad part is this guy is just giving up without a fight, yet their might be lawyers willing to do this pro bono. ACLU might be of help or even EFF.org.

[Guest LilBambi]

Yes, it doesn't matter who's right, just who has the most money. Reminds me of so many huge companies!Great thought about ACLU or EFF.org being helpful if he wanted to try to go up against this. I will pass on the info. I also mentioned to Justin in email that I had posted here, so who knows he just might stop in.