It’s been a while since we checked in on the trademark dispute between Intel and Psion over the term “netbook.” Last I’d heard, the two companies were busy throwing legal documents at one another to establish whether the term was generic, whether Psion had been actively taking steps to protect it, and so on. Now French site Blogeee reports that the two companies have reached a settlement.

According to Blogeee, Psion has basically decided to give up and let other computer makers refer to their products as netbooks. There’s no word on whether Intel is giving up anything in the deal, or if Psion folded for another reason. (Perhaps things weren’t going the company’s way in court, or the legal costs were too high).

I haven’t seen any confirmation of the agreement from Psion, Intel, or any of the other parties involved in the dispute yet. But Pierre at Blogeee assures me that his source is quite reliable.

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9 replies on “Rumor: Trademark battle over the term “netbook” ends in a settlement?”

  1. They were screwed from the very beginning in this trademark dispute. And there’s no way they could back up the claim since they’re such a small company with little leveraging power. It was a farce to think they could do battle with Intel and it’s a good thing they gave up when they did.

  2. I’ve not checked up on the case status in a while but the US court systems appear to be down all weekend so it’ll have to wait until tomorrow at least.

  3. I suspect Intel has more lawyers than Psion has total employees and loses more money through the holes in its pockets, so to speak, than Psoin would have wanted for a settlement.

    Psion should have protested sooner; they were probably waiting for Intel to get into it too deeply to turn back and to adequately incriminate themselves.

    But, still, if someone steals my car, do they get to keep it if I don’t demonstrate that I resisted strongly enough?

  4. Less of a settlement and more of a “yeah we’re boned” because on close inspection we didn’t have a product to back up the claim. Also we have now exposed ourselves to scrutiny by bigger sharks about our niche business of selling handheld computer for warehouse work.

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