Request for information regarding MONERO DISTRIBUTION CORPORATION and the trademark applications filed in its name

[geonic1]

It was recently pointed out that a Delaware corporation named MONERO DISTRIBUTION CORPORATION, formed 5 November 2021, has filed trademark applications for the Monero name and logo in both the United States and Europe.

https://uspto.report/TM/97195058
https://uspto.report/TM/97195072
https://tmdb.eu/marke/EU-018718407::monero-monero-distribution-corporation.html

It is further stated that (certain members of) the Core Team control the entity and filed these trademark applications on behalf of the Core Team as a whole. This was apparently disclosed publicly in a chat room, but I can't find the logs, so I am requesting public confirmation of this. If this is in fact the case, I believe it is in the interest of the community to know the names of the directors of the corporation. This information can also be obtained through the Delaware Division of Corporations at some cost if it is not forthcoming.

I am personally dismayed that the Core team has taken this step, which I believe contradicts not only what many of us believe to be the purpose of the Core Team -- that is, to serve as stewards of the project, NOT the owners of its name and likeness -- but also the Core Team's own statements (quoted below):

The Core Team does NOT equal Monero. In the event that one, or all of the Core Team goes rogue, we are to remember that Monero is a movement. A global initiative to further privacy globally, and provide real, fungible, digital money for everyone. This can happen even without the presence of the Core Team.

We should now add an asterisk to this statement, clarifying that in the event that one or all of the Core Team goes rogue, we should pick a new name and logo for the project, because the old ones will be under their legal control indefinitely. I imagine the difficulties that the original Core Team would've had in taking the project away from thankful_for_today if he had trademarked it (surely in the name of "protecting the project" by preempting bad actors).

I request a clarification of this situation and I would also like to know why this move, which some of the most prominent ecosystem participants were unaware of, was made without any (to my knowledge) public announcement or discussion.

Thank you.

[fluffypony]

It would be wise to stop creating issues about stuff you don't understand, this tilting-at-windmills stuff you do is infuriating to "most prominent ecosystem participants" - you should start becoming more self-aware so that you don't end up sealioning. If anyone is "personally dismayed" it's I who am personally dismayed that I have to waste my time with this Brandolini's law response.

If we didn't register the mark, we risk someone else registering the mark. That does not mean they can, in and of itself, stop Monero from using the name (as Monero's existence predates the mark's registration), but they could make our lives difficult, and absolutely could cost ecosystem participants tens of millions of Dollars in legal fees. Is this a scenario you want to play out?

In addition, our earliest attempt at defensively registering the mark was prevented by Moneero, a LatAm cryptocurrency wallet that already owned the Moneero mark. When that company died and the mark eventually expired we were, very discretely, contacted by by someone who suggested we register the mark before someone malicious does. Had we made this fact public, you can imagine that any one of a number of Monero haters would have nabbed the mark whilst we were debating. Design-by-committee is great for open-source, but terrible for moving fast and moving discretely.

Since it is impossible to collectively own a trademark, it has to be held by a company or an individual. What were we going to do? Oh yes - use the company that we already have for the Windows and Apple binary signing to own the mark.

Finally - we already renamed the project from BitMonero to Monero when we forked the codebase away from thankful_for_today, had he owned the trademark we would have called it something other than Monero. To suggest that a defensive trademark prevents forking is reductio ad absurdum, at best.

[umma08]

@fluffypony

Firstly, there is no reason to be unnecessarily hostile to what was (in my opinion) a pretty genuine request for transparency.

Second, just for clarification - if one of Monero Distribution Corporation goes rogue (for whatever reason) and the project decides to fork, the fork (if they wanted to maintain the name Monero) would suffer exactly the same risk of litigation that the defensive patent proposed to protect against, would it not?

Third, having a trademark for the project logo/brand/goodwill potentially increases the liability on both the trademark owners (as that entity may be seen as the legal owners/operators/stewards of the project) and the project itself, as it may be viewed in the eyes of regulators as proof of the centralised nature of the project.

I am not stirring a pot here, but dismissing this conversation as a waste of your time seems a little obtuse (at best) or ignorant (at worst), to me personally.

[hyc]

Trademark registration is a race; if multiple parties try to register the same mark the first one usually wins. (But different countries have different definitions of "first" - e.g., first to file application vs first to publish, etc.) So avoiding talking about that made perfect sense. Speaking from the experience of having registered my own trademark in the past, this is all standard practice and I see nothing nefarious here.

Patents have nothing to do with this conversation.

The core team are the stewards of the project, so I don't see what the problem there is.

[geonic1]

Sorry about the delay in responding. I had to obtain the requested information (namely, who the directors of this corporation are) from the Delaware Division of Corporations, as it was not forthcoming in fluffy's otherwise verbose reply.

As it turns out, the one and only director of the Monero Distribution Corporation is none other than (drumroll.gif): fluffypony

This poses a number of issues, namely:

• That an entity, which is supposed to "control" (own? protect?) the name and likeness of Monero is managed by a single person. We're not talking about the "core team" anymore. There isn't even a meager attempt at decentralization.
• That this entity was formed in the U.S. while its sole director was fighting extradition from the U.S. and whose legal standing in that country is anything but certain.
• That the trademark application was filed only a month and a half after the company was formed, contradicting the claim that it was an afterthought.

What remains unaddressed (and I read through the sealioning wiki page, googled Brandolini's law and even learned what reductio ad absurdum means -- all fascinating stuff) is the following:

1. What the plan is in the event that fluffypony's current (or future) legal issues result in a prolonged jail sentence.
2. What happens in the event that the company is sold, its assets are seized, etc.
3. What legal liabilities are created by this move and how it affects Monero's claim of decentralization in the eyes of regulators and other ecosystem participants (as pointed out by @umma08).

Lastly, it is worth observing that Bitcoin hasn't needed a "protective" trademark in its 13+ years of existence. Why would Monero? Bitcoin is currently trademarked in the UK by a squatter, but that hasn't affected anyone's ability to use Bitcoin there, likely because no one takes that trademark seriously. In the case of cryptocurrencies, a trademark by an entity with a claim to legitimacy is arguably more dangerous than a trademark by a squatter. This is a case of the cure being worse than the disease.

Sure, it is quicker and likely more effective to do things alone and without deliberation. It is quicker and more effective to have one director instead of seven. But it is also quicker and more effective to have an SQL database instead of a blockchain.