The legal tussle between the British PDA maker, Psion and Intel over the term ‘netbook’ has come to an end. The companies have settled the trademark cancellation and infringement litigation brought in the Northern District of California.
In an official statement, Psion said that it will voluntarily withdraw all of its trademark registrations for ‘Netbook’. The company also agreed to waive all its rights against third-parties in respect of past, current or future use of the term ‘Netbook’.
Previously Psion has started sending “cease and desist” letters to sites using the netbook term; it contended the use of the term because, earlier, it had already registered the ‘Netbook’ trademark in the US. The company has introduced a handheld device called the NetBook Pro in the late 1990s but no longer sells the product nowadays.
As reported by Digitimes, Intel and Dell issued proceedings to have Poison’s trademark revoked, arguing that the company was no longer using the mark with a product currently in the market, and that the term netbook had fallen into generic use.
