Petition Filed with US Patent Office to Cancel 'Urban Homestead' Trademark Held by Dingbat Dervaes Family

Petition Filed with US Patent Office to Cancel "Urban Homestead" Trademark Held by Dingbat Dervaes Family

By Gustavo Arellano Wed., Apr. 6 2011 at 2:30 PM

The Ma and Pa Kettle of the legal world?

Remember that humongous controversy earlier this year when a weirdo Pasadena family not only successfully got a trademark for the term "urban homesteading" (used in American English for decades), but began sending threatening legal letters to entities who used the term? It created a massive backlash that actually emboldened urban homesteaders to use the term and to forge bonds that never before had existed. Compost that, Dervaes family!

But beyond community organizing, others also pursued legal means to try and make the US Patent and Trademark office to drop the Dervaes' scheme. And the latest legal grenade dropped this Monday, when Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen (authors of the fine book to your right), along with their publisher, Process Media (partly run by Adam Parfrey of Feral House fame), filed a petition with the Patent and Trademark office's Trial and Appeal Board to have the urban homestead trademark canceled.

Represented in part by the bad-ass Electronic Freedom Foundation, the plaintiffs--though obviously having a vested interest in the issue since the Dervaes' forced Facebook to take down their page for using "urban homestead"--make it clear that they're fighting this fight for all urban homeasteaders, noting "many urban homesteaders supplement their income with income from the urban homestead itself, by writing or teaching about their lifestyle, selling produce, and/or selling other related products." Having a trademark on such a generic term, writes the plaintiffs' lawyers, "prevent others from accurately describing and educating others about urban homeasteading and creating an urban homestead."

Congrats to Parfrey, Coyne and Knutzen for taking on the Dervaes', and to ALL urban homesteaders who have continued to use the term to describe their beautiful movement. Stay tuned for the latest developments...

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Faequeen1973

The saddest thing about this is that they really don't think they are wrong. Can we say "malignant narcissist?"

Iklych

Denver Urban Homesteading filed today a Petition to Cancel "urban homesteading" trademark. I'll publish tonight all documents on our website www.denverurbanhomesteading.or... and make it available for everybody to use as example.

Molly Moody

I first heard this term in 1984 at The Mother Earth News Eco-Village outside Hendersonville, North Carolina.

Castallia

It's been illuminating, but sad, to find out about who the real Dervaes family is, and what they represent. Before this whole thing, I was a pretty regular reader of their website. But I'm glad to know what they really represent (themselves, and their desire to own the movement and dominate any others who infringe on their imagined "territory") and can move on and learn from more community-minded souls.

Tumblin Justice

Idathought that Parfrey was too busy publishing the ideas and concepts of that Unabomber fellow who went around blowing up people who might have been associated with an objectionable abstraction (or were just in the wrong place at the wrong time -- logic can't anticipate ehhhvrything) that he could have determined or calculated, had he really thought about it. Yes, yes, I realize that the killings and maimings made a big difference and helped produce the Paradise in which we now live and that there's certainly nothing wrong with making money off that kinda thing. To be honest, I'm just killing or maiming a little time, holding my breath, waiting for the OC Weekly to do something useful, funny, or even a tiny bit interesting.