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The OSHO Trademark Ruling

Osho International Foundation Zurich, the legal holder of trademarks and copyrights related to Osho, have lost the trademark of the word "Osho" with regard 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 versus 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 USPTO.

From the USPTO Site:

(USPTO: United States Patent and Trademark Office)

Decisions:

  1. Plaintiff′s petition to cancel is hereby granted on the ground of genericness as to Registration Nos.:
    • 1815840
    • 2180173
    • 2174607
  2. 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.
  3. Plaintiff′s oppositions to the registration of application Serial Nos.:
    • 75834601
    • 76159554
    • 76159553
    • 76060676
    • 75683097
    • 76210213
    • 76158894
    • 76158895
    • 76158893
    are sustained on the ground of mere descriptiveness.

Here are the trademarks effected:

The case involved testimony from many sannyasins, in particular from Osho Deepta (Yogananda, Sangeet, Krishna Priya, Sudhasadan) in California, Osho Viha and Osho World.

Letter from Osho World:

Beloveds of Osho,
As i write this my heart is so full... 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:

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.

Letter from Ma Sangeet:

(Sangeet is one of the legal representatives)

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!

Much love,
Sangeet

Amrit Sadhana Answers

(Amrit Sadhana is a press officer for the Osho Meditation Resort in Pune and has put up a response to the recent trademark finding against Osho Foundation International)

OSHO : a protected trademark in more than 40 countries

For more than 40 years both during his life and afterwards the Osho Foundations have always acted on Osho's request to protect his name, his copyright and his work and will continue to do so. As part of this work Osho is now a protected trademark in more than 40 other countries around the world.
Recently the Patent and Trademark office in the US decided, in a trademark dispute brought against the Osho Foundation by a group of so called "Friends of Osho", that the name Osho is generic and cannot be registered as a trademark in the United States. Generic means that Osho is now in the same category as computers and tissues. This decision is appealable in the American courts. It is interesting to note that the same group, Friends of Osho, that brought the US action, and who today claims victory in the US action, is the same group applying to register "Osho" as a trademark in India for their personal business.
Osho Foundation′s main reason for applying for the Osho trademark is to ensure that Osho′s name would be used as a way of identifying his work. If this decision stands this will no longer be the case. As the decision now stands anyone in the United States can use the name Osho in any manner they may choose. They may create their own meditations and call them Osho Meditations or even change any of Osho′s meditations as they wish. They may create and sell "Osho paintings" even if they are painted by someone else, or any manner of such things.
It is strange that the Foundation′s success in making Osho′s proposal available, including in the United States, was the source of the board′s view that Osho, in the United States, is considered generic.
This decision has no effect on Osho′s copyright which is protected by international treaties around the world. So, Osho Foundation′s efforts to make Osho available around the world will continue to expand exactly as is currently the case.

Gorakh Comments:

(Gorakh is founder of Sannyas World)

In a sense, this puts the word ′Osho′ on the same footing as the word ′Buddha′ or ′Jesus′, not that we see many paintings sold as ′Buddha paintings′.
Many see the trademark dispute as an inevitable fall-out from the Osho Foundation′s arrogant and combative attitude to any sannyasins that disagree with them (see the above dismissal of "so-called Friends of Osho"). This created an atmosphere of us against them and resulted, last year, in a spate of web-site closures as OFI tried to stop sites from using pictures and quotes from Osho.
The trademark decision has no effect on the copyright situation but it may persuade the OFI to be less antagonistic to those who seek to spread Osho′s insights and message. Ideally Osho′s discourses should be released under a Creative Commons License.

The Osho Trademark: summed up by OFI

Osho Friends International have had a complete revamp of their website and it now contains a very thorough and complete summary of the recent Osho trademark case in USA, along with more information on copyright issues. Also a lot of Osho quotes.

Notes: