vincent nguyen

Blog-tag is a simple web game started by Jeff Pulver. The rule is simple, I’m supposed to share five things most people wouldn’t know about me, and then tag five other bloggers in the blogosphere. Judie of GearDiary.com tagged me a couple of days back, so here goes:

1. I studied pre-med in college with the aspiration to some day become a neonatal surgeon. Then towards the end of my junior year, I came to the conclusion that I didn’t want to spend the next ten years of my life in school. So ten years later, I’m blogging for a living.
2. I enjoy Bailey with my coffee in the morning and hot chocolate late at night.
3. I met Jay Leno on the stage of the Tonight Show.
4. I won a contest in 10th grade to create and produce a PSA (public service announcement) video that aired on TV for three months.
5. I enjoy watching 24, Heros and Prison Break.

Now it’s my turn to tag Ewdison Then, Bjorn Stromberg, Joel Johnson, Chris Davies and Jason O’Grady.

Motorola wants the domain motorazr.com, but they do not have the right to it. This timeline explains why we legally have the right to motorazr.com.

Related: Motorola resorts to reverse domain hijacking of motorazr.com

Our response:
http://docs.google.com/View?docid=ddvfjbqc_9v5ms3s

Motorola’s complaint:
http://docs.google.com/View?docid=ddvfjbqc_10g4wrt6

Read Motorola’s Cease & Desist

Click for full size.

The first few articles written about the Motorola RAZR V3. You’ll notice that it’s not called the motorazr! motorazr.com was redirected to phonemag.com while it was being developed into a website now known as motoRAZR.

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It seems like bad news spreads fastest of all; Motorola’s heavy-handed tactics have obviously struck a nerve, with plenty of critical comments both here and on other sites reporting our case. I thought I’d take a moment to address some of the questions people have been asking, as well as clear up any confusion about exactly why this is pure bluster and bullying on the part of a big corporation.

First off, there have been some questions about who exactly owns the trademark RAZR. In all the time I’ve been running motorazr.com I’ve never claimed that I own RAZR, and a quick look at the Patent and Trademark Office’s site shows that Motorola doesn’t own it either. In fact, there are only two variants of RAZR registered, both by a tyre manufacturer in Georgia. For the record, motorazr.com has no connection with them, either!

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And perhaps more to the point, why should I care what Motorola is doing?

Well, you may not hear his name bounced around on TechCrunch or Digg, but you might recognise some of the sites he’s behind. SlashPhone and SlashGear are maybe the best known, but he’s also responsible for Unbox.IT, MYiPhone and a host of other, topic-specific news sites.

There’s no big budget behind any of it, just a whole load of enthusiastic writers. In fact, that’s where I came in - Vincent has a habit of offering new bloggers a chance, and all of a sudden my words were getting quite a few more readers than the just-about-double-figures I’d managed before.

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Update: Motorola resorts to reverse domain hijacking of motorazr.com

Think back to May 2004, when Motorola launched the first RAZR phone. Do you recall the company ever using the name or term MOTORAZR? I sure don’t, and that is because they hadn’t.

To make a long story short, Motorola is trying to use a legal tactic to take away what is rightfully ours – the mobile phone news site .

Motorazr.com was registered on July 28, 2004, after which it was immediately put into use as a news service and community website. Motorazr.com had already been providing news to the mobile community for two years, when without any prior notifications Motorola’s lawyers sent a Cease & Desist Order on August 31, 2006.

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