The PGCAC (PostgreSQL Community Association of Canada), representing the interests of the PostgreSQL community and acting on behalf of the PostgreSQL Core Team, has urged the Fundación PostgreSQL to fulfill previous commitments and transfer the rights to the registered trademarks and domain names associated with PostgreSQL.
It is noted that on September 14, 2021, the day after the public disclosure of the conflict caused by the Fundación PostgreSQL registering the trademarks "PostgreSQL" and "PostgreSQL Community" in Spain and filing for similar trademarks in the USA and the EU, representatives of the PostgreSQL Core Team managed to reach an agreement with the Fundación PostgreSQL. The Fundación PostgreSQL stated it would initiate the process of transferring all trademarks and domains to PGCAC free of charge and without any conditions.
Seven months have passed since then, but the agreement on the transfer of trademarks remains unresolved. A sticking point became the intention of the PGCAC to compensate for the costs incurred during attempts to contest the trademark applications. The PGCAC did not seek full reimbursement for legal expenses but requested the reimbursement of the filing fee for the opposition to the trademark registration. The Fundación PostgreSQL refused to cover such costs, explaining its decision by saying that they could have been avoided if the PGCAC had attempted to resolve the issue through direct negotiations without involving a law firm.
During the discussion of the draft agreement, the Fundación PostgreSQL rejected most of the terms for resolving the conflict and proposed adding several of its own conditions but continued to assert that it would withdraw the trademark applications regardless of the conclusion of an official agreement. Ultimately, the preparation of the agreement stalled, the trademark applications remain unwithdrawn, and the lawyer for the Fundación PostgreSQL indicated that the organization is not interested in fulfilling its previous promise regarding the withdrawal of the trademarks (likely meaning a refusal to withdraw the trademarks until an official agreement is signed).
Representatives of PGCAC have called on Fundación PostgreSQL to finalize the work on resolving the conflict and to fulfill the promises regarding the withdrawal of trademark registrations and transfer domains, to close this issue and focus on addressing other project tasks.
It should be noted that the PGCAC organization perceived the actions of Fundación PostgreSQL as an attempt to seize the project trademarks. However, the situation is not so straightforward, according to Fundación PostgreSQL, which claims to act in the community's interest by trying to protect the PostgreSQL brand from misuse and ensuring that the trademarks are managed by a fully independent non-profit organization not controlled by individual companies.
The founder of Fundación PostgreSQL did not insist on continuing to hold the acquired trademarks and proposed to create a new, fully independent organization that could own all the intellectual property of the PostgreSQL project and consolidate the disparate assets currently held by the PGCAC, PEU (postgresql.eu), and Fundación PostgreSQL. The governing board was proposed to be formed from the PostgreSQL Core Team but placed under the control of a General Assembly representative of a broader community. Currently, some of the existing trademarks of the project belong to the PGCAC association in Canada, while another part belongs to the European organization PEU. According to Fundación PostgreSQL, these organizations duplicate each other's functions and have opaque governance.
Source: opennet.ru
