Minsky vs Linden Lab: The Vezina incident
by Tateru Nino 
Nov 24th 2008 at 9:00PM
Filed under: News items, Second Life, Legal
One of the parties named in the Richard Minsky's trademark lawsuit is Victor Vezina, whom we haven't heard much about, and whose identity has been a bit mysterious. As it turns out, Victor Vezina is Victor Keegan, a technology writer for the Guardian.
Keegan started up an art gallery in in Second Life called 'SLart' in early 2007, prior to the establishment of Minsky's trademark -- however, legally it matters less who is first and more who gets the blessing of the US Patent and Trademarks Office (USPTO). Juris Amat, Minsky's legal representative wrote to Linden Lab on Minsky's behalf instructing them to notify Vezina to cease and desist from use of the SLART trademark in Second Life.
Well, Linden Lab has now sort of complied. Sideways.
Keegan's SLart sign was only recently removed from Second Life without comment or communication from Linden Lab. Only when Keegan complained about the removal, was he told that "'SL' was Linden's trademark and that I was only allowed to use it when followed by a space and two generic nouns."
This would hardly seem to constitute compliance with the the orders of US District Judge Lawrence E. Kahn, except in the most oblique way. It seems that Linden Lab isn't giving any ground when it comes to the required enforcement of Richard Minsky's trademark. Certainly no mention of the SLART trademark or of the fact that they're removing the content unwillingly. In fact no notice at the time that they'd removing it at all.
Linden Lab definitely has its heels dug in on this, and you can almost smell the amount of ill-will that is being generated as the Minsky and the Lab continue to grapple over trademarks. Lawsuits aren't exactly a very fast-paced spectator sport, but they can certainly be full of interesting twists.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Doubledown Tandino said on 11:38PM 11-24-2008
As a fan of the SLART case, I'm proud to have the first comment! WOOO!!! can't wait to post something on Virtually Blind too. As I've said before, my personal take is that LL needs to apply RL law, and they do the best they can... they just try to comply when they can, and then hopefully have some time to focus on making SL better.
A year of Bragg, and now a year of SLART... it's just LAAAAAAAAG.
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Moe Greene said on 3:44PM 11-25-2008
You would think the TOS would be superceded by an order from the bench but it appears as if Linden Labs has decided to treat this as they do any other infraction that they act upon. They do need to be careful as their selectivity is going to bite them not just on trademark issues but on issues related to situations like kiddie porn and gambling.
Demonstrating selective control of their empire by enforcing perceived illegalities related to their brand and not what most of us would perceive as substantially more serious makes them appear complicit in engaging in those activities. Can you say RICO?
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