Netbooks are all the rage — and Dell doesn’t want any one company to have the right to use the term to describe the miniature notebook computers. On Wednesday Dell filed a petition with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cancel Psion Teklogix’s registered trademark for the term Netbook.
Dell is taking on the battle against Psion for the entire PC industry. Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Sony, Samsung, LG, Fujitsu, Acer and ASUS are among the top netbook makers and there’s plenty at stake. Even as laptop and PC sales decline, netbooks are seeing growth.
Also called mini-notebooks, netbooks are on pace to reach 5.2 million units in 2008 and eight million units in 2009, according to Gartner. The market is expected to experience strong growth, with as many as 50 million mini-notebooks shipped in 2012. Several factors will drive the demand for netbooks, including a small form factor and small screen, light weight, price, ease of use, and basic but sufficient PC functionality.
Dell’s Argument
Psion is a Canadian mobile-computer manufacturer that sells a product called Netbook. Late last year, Psion sent cease-and-desist letters to netbook manufacturers, retailers, bloggers and journalists demanding they stop using the term by the end of March. Psion wants the world to “transition to a different descriptive term.”
Psion first trademarked the term Netbook in December 1996, long before the industry had a clue that it could manufacture mini-laptops that would take the mobile-PC industry by storm. But Dell doesn’t intend to stop using the term without a fight. The PC maker’s legal action accuses Psion of not defending its trademark, not using the term on its current products, and not being truthful.
Specifically, Dell asserts that Psion has not been selling laptop computers under the trademark Netbook since 1999 as it has claimed, nor is Psion currently offering laptop…