Xilinx sends lawyers after online educators.

[Gobi]

This is just unacceptable. I understand attacking people for slander or copyright infringement, but attacking online free and paid educators just seems extremely petty.
Video is from motherboard designer and youtube educator Robert Feranec.

[langwadt]

is it simple a case of a too heavy handed protection of their trademark?, something they have to do if they want to keep it

[Gobi]

That argument would make sense if the creators infringed on their copyright, or in any way defamed or slandered xilinx. They were purely educational. I know that you have to protect your trademark to keep it. But wouldn't it be more beneficial to send lawyers after people actually abusing their trademark over electronics community educators? Call me old fashioned but that just seems spiteful in my eyes.

[rhb]

This is just an unfortunate aspect of trademark law.    This is why the copyright pages in  technical books state that certain terms and logos appearing in the book are property of their respective owners.  That seems to be the accepted solution.  A little text overlay on the opening screen is all that is needed to cure the violation.

This sort of chore gets handed to very junior lawyers or even a secretary to write.  A well written "cease and desist" would state the requirements for continuing to use the name and logo.

The trademark owner *must* send out cease and desist letters or they will lose the trademark.  The appropriate response is a polite letter addressed to the corporate general counsel asking how they wish to have their rights acknowledged.   There is nothing difficult or malicious about this.  Everyone has to follow the rules that have been established by legal precedent.

I find it surprising that most people *don't* know this as it is a very common problem.

I worked for a major oil company which had *extremely* strict rules about the use of the company logo.  You *had* to use the company supplied logo because if you made one up yourself and it was not an *exact* match for the proportions of the official logo, they would lose the rights to the logo.  The logo was very simple, so a coworker had just whipped up a small PostScript file.   Senior management had a cow.  Not sure how they figured out it was not an official rendition, but they did.

[vodka]

 The solution is very easy, when the multinationals turns Sovietics, we have to touch the pocket. And the solution purposed by the journalist Cesar Vidal is the better for getting down them  of the donkey.

Editorial Cesar Vidal 21-09-2017  Not Buy Catalan Products.(First part)

It was the year 1897 when died Charles Cunningham Boycott that for some time, Boycott had been an administrator from an absentee landlord in the May County from Ireland.
In middle of a serious economic crisis,Boycott refused to listen to the requests of the sharecroppers, who requesting a temporary reduction of the income that had to pay.
The response of the sharecroppers were to stop working for him and even interrupting any comunication. In fact, the shops interrupted the sale of food and even the postman
stopped to deliver the mails. Boycott brought several dozens of workers of the other side of the country, besides of guard for protecting them. But the result was the cost
of the harvest grew up until exceeding 10,000 pounds. A value too high for its real value. In december of 1880 , Boycott hadn't other solution that gave up his work .
The form in which the decision of those people had affected their economy, finally, he had brought to capitulate ,furthermore his surname passed an other languages, adapted as boycott. 
Like or not like , there are people who only react human form when they are affected their pocket.

https://youtu.be/hKoIhl8kmxE

[Bud]

That is surely not right and even type of shooting themselves in the foot. But if it is purely of the use of the logo why not just blank it out in videos and refer to the chip as F-FPGA (f..king FPGA) so everyone knows what the manufacturer name is.

[Berni]

Seriusly?!

How retarded does the management at Xilinix have to be to see someone making videos on how to use there chips as a threat to there profitability.

They should be paying people to make more videos rather than suing them to stop. If 80% of all FPGA tutorial videos out there used Xilinix chips what do you think most people would chose when they have no specific reason for going for a certain vendor. That's how you take profits from that evil evil Intel company you hate so much, not by making training videos for your chip be in the form courses you have to pay a few grand to even attend.

[boB]

Great !   I guess I will just have to design out any Xilinx (TM) parts now for future products.

Geeesh !

The problem with lawyers is that we have too many damn lawyers !

[Mr. Scram]

It sounds like a typical case of fair use. Copyright doesn't mean you can't display a logo. Unfortunately it's also a case of being in a world of hurt because someone with deep pockets has decided he feels like whooping some legal ass, regardless of whether they're right or not. That's not even that important.

[In Vacuo Veritas]

Great !   I guess I will just have to design out any Xilinx (TM) parts now for future products.

Sure, because there's just so many vendors to choose from.

You just haven't seen the jackass behavior from the other guys... yet.

[langwadt]

It sounds like a typical case of fair use. Copyright doesn't mean you can't display a logo. Unfortunately it's also a case of being in a world of hurt because someone with deep pockets has decided he feels like whooping some legal ass, regardless of whether they're right or not. That's not even that important.

without seeing what they complained about it is impossible to tell it is fair use, and I doubt Xilinx cares about a youtuber showing a xilinx logo, they just have a law firm tasked with protecting the use of their trademarks because if they don't claim their right to their trademarks they lose them

[coppercone2]

rofl many EE regard FPGA as a kind of solution thats not viable and too complicated, this just helps that thought.

[Mr. Scram]

without seeing what they complained about it is impossible to tell it is fair use, and I doubt Xilinx cares about a youtuber showing a xilinx logo, they just have a law firm tasked with protecting the use of their trademarks because if they don't claim their right to their trademarks they lose them

We have a decent idea, as the situation was described.

[langwadt]

without seeing what they complained about it is impossible to tell it is fair use, and I doubt Xilinx cares about a youtuber showing a xilinx logo, they just have a law firm tasked with protecting the use of their trademarks because if they don't claim their right to their trademarks they lose them

We have a decent idea, as the situation was described.

from the Xilinx Terms of Use "The trademarks, logos and service marks displayed on the Site are the property of Xilinx or other third parties. You are not permitted to use trademarks, logos and service marks found on the Site without the prior written consent of the trademark owner."

that said, Xilinx should probably tell their law firm to have a bit more common sense and handle such things in a more reasonable manner

[rhb]

Actually, Xilinx should simply have a senior lawyer draft a form letter rather  than leave it to someone who just finished law school.

The legal requirements are well established and easy to comply with.  This is *not* a big deal.   It's just dotting some i's and crossing some t's.

[wraper]

without seeing what they complained about it is impossible to tell it is fair use, and I doubt Xilinx cares about a youtuber showing a xilinx logo, they just have a law firm tasked with protecting the use of their trademarks because if they don't claim their right to their trademarks they lose them

We have a decent idea, as the situation was described.

from the Xilinx Terms of Use "The trademarks, logos and service marks displayed on the Site are the property of Xilinx or other third parties. You are not permitted to use trademarks, logos and service marks found on the Site without the prior written consent of the trademark owner."

that said, Xilinx should probably tell their law firm to have a bit more common sense and handle such things in a more reasonable manner

As I understood Xilinx was not happy their dev board was shown together with Altera dev board. And as I understand it's was not something displayed on their website.

[Mr. Scram]

from the Xilinx Terms of Use "The trademarks, logos and service marks displayed on the Site are the property of Xilinx or other third parties. You are not permitted to use trademarks, logos and service marks found on the Site without the prior written consent of the trademark owner."

that said, Xilinx should probably tell their law firm to have a bit more common sense and handle such things in a more reasonable manner

Xilinx can write what it wants, but it doesn't write laws. Not to mention company terms tend to be filled with scary threats to deter people from behaviour companies can factually do nothing about. This isn't how copyright law works.

[rhb]

Duh.

A legally clueless person posts a bunch of videos.  So in due time he gets a formal notice that what he is doing is not allowed.  Xilinx didn't write the law.  They just have to follow it like everyone else.

Xilinx did not have any option other than to send a cease and desist letter.

[wraper]

Duh.

A legally clueless person posts a bunch of videos.  So in due time he gets a formal notice that what he is doing is not allowed.  Xilinx didn't write the law.  They just have to follow it like everyone else.

Xilinx did not have any option other than to send a cease and desist letter.

LOL what? 

[wraper]

According to rhb Dave must remove all company logos  on oscilloscopes, multimeters and other equipment he tests and compares  .

[wraper]

It seems lawyers hired by Xylinx wrote a ton of bullshit not having any legal standing in the law.

https://youtu.be/64WGwD6VIhI

https://nofilmschool.com/2013/08/answers-to-legal-questions-films-entertainment-law

the simple answer is yes, it's legal to film a recognizable place, brand, or logo as long as the following criteria are met:

i) the place or product shot is portrayed in the manner it is commonly portrayed; and (ii) the audience is not led to believe that the brand or store is sponsoring or associated with your film.

[Gr8fulFox]

Xilinx did not have any option other than to send a cease and desist letter.

You don't seem to understand trademark law. It would've been illegal for him to manufacture his own parts, and then slap the Xilinx logo on them, to fool customers that they were actually built by Xilinx; that's the point of trademark law; so when customers by a chip that says 'Xilinx', they know it was actually built by Xilinx.

What this person is doing, is building personal projects with parts made from Xilinx; in that case, it's perfectly legal to include the name and logo of Xilinx in his videos, as long as he doesn't make it seem that the project, itself, was designed, built, or endorsed by Xilinx. This lawsuit is bullshit.

[Marco]

from the Xilinx Terms of Use "The trademarks, logos and service marks displayed on the Site are the property of Xilinx or other third parties. You are not permitted to use trademarks, logos and service marks found on the Site without the prior written consent of the trademark owner."

By reading this you will be agree'ing not to use Xilinx parts in the future. Please show that the same due respect.

[daqq]

The proper reaction from a semiconductor company (or any other kind of company) to a guy making a tutorial on how to use their products is to shower them with love, free devkits and all other kinds of support. Unless the lawyers that actually fired of this kind of bullshit don't get reprimanded I'm gonna lose a lot of respect for Xilinx.

Is there any kind of precedent for some company losing their trademarks over someone reviewing their products?

[Berni]

Showing a logo in a video that involves there product falls under being fair use.

If he was using the logo to make people think a product is from Xilinx when it is actually not that is trademark infringement.

If you could not show a logo in a video then youtubers would have put tape or sharpie over all the logos on products visible in the video, From the apple logo on the back of an iPhone or MacBook to the Lacoste or Nike or whatever logo on there shirt.

The reason that logos tend to be so well hidden in movies is not because of trademark infringement. By placing a known product in a movie they are essentially advertising the product. This could land the movie studio blame of product placement, or the company who owns the brand could sue them for making an advertisement that makes there product look bad. Also companies pay big money to have movies do a product placement of there product so the movie studio doesn't want to give them product placement for free. So in the end its less trouble to simply avoid showing logos.

So if you make a video that includes showing a Xilinx dev board and has you talking about how crap there chips are and that video becomes popular. Well yes Xilinx could certainly sue you for advertising there products being bad and demand a ridiculous sum of money in compensation for the lost sales you supposedly caused them trough some imaginary metric. But they can't use trademark or copyright laws against you for that.