[Open-education] University of Guelph & “trademarking” of the term “openED”

Tue Jun 9 08:49:24 UTC 2015

Morning all,

Some of you may have been following the situation with regards 
University of Guelph (Ontario, Canada) “trademarking” of the term 
“openED”. For those who haven't I think it would be useful to keep 
yourselves aware of the situation as it is an important topic for the 
community. The UK OpenEd group have had a discussion on this 
<https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A1=ind1506&L=OPENEDSIG#4>so 
many of these links come from that.

  * Guelph registered 'OpenED as a prohibited mark back in 2013 - in
    Canada. Guelph use OpenED in the context of continuing education,
    rather than anything to do with Open Education
    http://opened.uoguelph.ca/ool_default.aspx
  * Useful posts:
      o Brian Lamb: http://abject.ca/questionsforuofg/
      o Clint Lalonde:
        https://dongorges.wordpress.com/2015/06/06/clint-lalonde-opened-trademark-post-copy/
      o David Kernohan: http://followersoftheapocalyp.se/2015/06/
      o Tweets on @uofg @openeduofg and #uofg.
  * They wanted the OpenEd conferences to stop using the name - FAQ
    http://abject.ca/questionsforuofg/
  * The mark was then released: http://opened.uoguelph.ca/news.aspx "It
    is evident that the various meanings of the term 'OpenEd' will be
    challenged to co-exist and therefore, the University of Guelph is
    taking steps to release the official mark in its entirety, although
    this will make the mark available for others to attempt to make it
    their official mark or to apply to register it as a traditional
    trade-mark."

Thanks

Marieke

-- 

Marieke Guy
Project Coordinator | skype: mariekeguy | tel: 44 (0) 1285 885681 | 
@mariekeguy <http://twitter.com/mariekeguy>
Open Education Working Group <http://education.okfn.org/>
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