Trademark on the word 'OSHO' refused to OSHO International Foundation.
OSHO International Foundation Zurich (the legal holder of trademarks
and copyrights related to OSHO) have lost the trademark of the word
"OSHO" as related to meditations and related usages. The Trademark
Trial and Appeal Board found that "the term OSHO is generic for the
meditations devised by the mystic OSHO and the meditation and
religious movement arising therefrom. As a result defendant [OIF]
cannot foreclose others from utilizing the term OSHO to describe their
own goods and services based upon such meditations and movements."
The decision effects 13 different trademarks or usages of the word
OSHO. It is the result of an opposition lodged by OSHO Friends
International against OSHO International Foundation (OFI v OIF). OFI
also accused OIF of committing fraud by registering the trademarks,
but this was not upheld by the courts decision. The opposition case
was started in November 2000 after OIF had filed for the trademark to
OSHO Active Meditations (they had previously filed for trademarks
starting in April 1999). A full time line is available here. The full
decision from the court is available from the United States Patent
and Trademark Office
* * * * *
FROM USPTO site:
"DECISION: plaintiff's petition to cancel is hereby granted on the
ground of genericness as to Registration Nos. 1815840, 2180173 and
2174607. Plaintiff's petition to cancel is further granted on the
ground of mere descriptiveness as to Registration No. 2322901.
Accordingly, these registrations will be cancelled in due course.
Plaintiff's oppositions to the registration of application Serial Nos.
75834601; 76159554; 76159553; 76060676; 75683097; 76210213; 76158894;
76158895; and 76158893 are sustained on the ground of mere
descriptiveness.
Here are the trademarks effected:
OSHO ACTIVE MEDITATIONS in application serial No. 75834601.
OSHO ZEN TAROT, Application Serial No. 76159554
OSHO TRANSFORMATION TAROT, App Ser No 76159553
OSHO KUNDALINI MEDITATION, App Ser No 76060676
OSHO App Ser No 75683097
OSHO NADABRAHMA MEDITATION App Ser No 76210213
OSHO MEDITATION RESORT App Ser No 76158894
OSHO MULTIVERSITY App Ser No 76158895
OSHO TIMES App Ser No 76158893
OSHO REBALANCING App Ser No 2322901
The case involved testimony from many sannyasins, in particular from
OSHO Deepta (Yogananda, Sangeet, Krishna Priya, Sudhasadan) in
California, OSHO Viha and OSHOWorld.com.
OSHOWorld has written a beautiful letter:
============
A great day... below messages from OSHO World and OSHO VIHA....
Beloveds of OSHO
As i write this my heart is so fill.....of what cannot say...of
gratitude, of love, of rememberance of Him, of.... Feels impossible to
write.
CONGRATULATIONS to all of you... His lovers....we won!
OSHO is now... freely available to all His lovers.
Message from our attorneys to whom we will always be filled with
gratitude.
"We won! We won! We won! Congratulations to all of you!"
USPTO granted our petitions filed to cancel and granted our
oppositions to all of OIF's OSHO trademark registrations and
applications. It is a beautiful opinion.
We succeeded in simplifying the lengthy and complex record
sufficiently so the Board obviously was able to grasp what was going
on in this case.
The following are some of the more noteworthy statements by the Board.
"Based upon the testimony and evidence of record, we find that the
primary significance of OSHO is as a religious or meditative movement,
and not as a source identifier for goods or services."
"...this term is generic and should be freely available for use by
competitors. ... As a result, defendant cannot appropriate the term
OSHO to identify the source of its goods and services related to such
teachings."
The Board concluded: "Based upon the foregoing, we find the term OSHO
is generic for the meditations devised by the mystic OSHO and the
meditative and religious movement arising therefrom. As a result,
defendant cannot foreclose others from utilizing the term OSHO to
describe their own goods and services based upon such meditations and
movements."
The Board sustained our action based on the grounds of genericness
and/or the term being merely descriptive. It said that it therefore
did not feel it was necessary to reach the other issues.
It is a beautiful decision and a great victory in a team effort. On a
personal note, I congratulate all of His lovers for this fabulous
result and thank you for all of your efforts in this cause.
Thank you thank you thank you......
Let us now freely go forward to let Him do His work....
LOVE U all His Lovers.
============
And the following letter from Sangeet (one of the legal
representatives involved):
============
Beloveds,
There was a big win for religiousness over religion in the US today.
Obama is being sworn in and OSHO is free for all to use: it's a happy
New Year indeed.
The US trademark board released it's decision in the OSHO case today,
after 10 years of litigation. The opinion was very strongly worded and
unanimous. The board ruled that "OSHO" is used to refer to meditations
and the movement that arose around the teachings of the person OSHO.
It isn't a brand of products produced by OSHO International Foundation
in Zurich.
This means that "OSHO" must be available for all OSHO's people to use
to describe what they're doing. OIF cannot keep others from using
OSHO. Every trademark challenged by OSHO Friends was canceled or denied.
This is the best possible decision we could have hoped for. It steps
over all the arguments about who owned what trademarks and whether
anyone licensed anyone else. In essence, this decision simply says
that there is no trademark. Since the name "OSHO" means a certain
approach to meditation and a whole movement, it can't be a trademark
for anyone, ever.
Many thanks to everyone who helped with this, who stood up and were
counted. All the witnesses that OSHO Friends called were cited in the
footnotes of the decision, but there were particular quotes from the
testimony of Dhanyam (Rosansky), Krishna Priya (Hemenway), and Maniko
(Dadigan). Telling the truth does have power!
I'm attaching the decision. Please pass this great news on to anyone
on your address list who might like to celebrate.
Much love,
Sangeet