permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <hemenway@jeffnet.org>]

on 7/10/01 8:24 AM, permed@nor.com.au at permed@nor.com.au wrote:

>Bill mollison & Lisa Mollison
> lodged applications to trade mark [the words "permaculture design"]

On the one hand, it's not at all unusual for those who name a new process to
trademark the name; many forms of therapy and coursework are trademarked.
But what disturbs me, as it does Robyn, is that this goes counter to the
many recorded statements Bill has made to "give permaculture away" (friends
have a tape of him saying this at the Bioneers conference), and the long
precedent, established and encouraged by Bill, of having teachers spawn new
teachers, who teach new teachers, and so on, to spread permaculture. Also,
due to the seemingly capricious nature of the Mollisons' recent choices as
to who receives their approval,  and their misguided attempts, due to
ignorance of copyright law, to block others from writing about permaculture,
this seems a very bad development. It should be blocked until those who have
worked so hard in Pc for many years are assured that there will be an
objective, impersonal set of criteria for certifying users of the trademark.

That shouldn't be hard. PDCs have been around for 20 years without
trademark, which may have already established them as public domain (I'm not
a lawyer, but this is my understanding of how it works), and Bill is on
record in his books, tapes, and public statements as saying, for example
(Design Manual, page x) "graduates of a Permaculture Institute can teach
permaculture" if they adhere to the curriculum. That's anyone with a
legitimate certificate.

It would be wise for our friends in Oz (and I assume Bill and Lisa will
follow suit in the US and UK) to gather any evidence of these precedents,
submit it to a lawyer, and lodge an objection. Maybe each country's Pc
people can take up a collection to pay the legal expenses.

Toby 
_____________________________________________
For a look at my new book on ecological gardening,
Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, visit
http://www.chelseagreen.com/Garden/GaiasGarden.htm