FreecycleSunnyvale won its naked licensing claim and The Freecycle
Network lost in a ruling that came out today from the Northern
District of California Federal Court. The ruling is attached (if
fcnext strips attachments than I'm sure various people will upload it
somewhere and post a link).

As we argued and won in this summary judgement, The Freecycle Network
nakedly licensed the mark "Freecycle" and its logo to
FreecycleSunnyvale (and others). Therefore TFN did not have a
defensible trademark and FreecycleSunnyvale did have the right to use
the mark "Freecycle" and its original logo on its group.

The remainder of the lawsuit either goes to trial or might be settled
out of court if TFN is agreeable. So all is not over, but we have won
a major victory.

As to how this affects all the other groups that TFN and Yahoo
deleted and/or threatened, we cannot offer advice in that area. You
should consult with your own attorney and provide them a copy of the
order.

As a reminder, in an earlier 9th Circuit ruling, TFN also lost and
free speech won -- it is legal for people to use the word "freecycle"
in a generic fashion. If you have not already, please read further
details at:
http://timoey.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html

We wish all the best to you and freecycling groups worldwide.

Sincerely,
Tim Oey
on behalf of FreecycleSunnyvale

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