Recent disagreements between Arduino LLC, the original/first Arduino, and Arduino Srl, originally Smart Projects Srl, regarding where the brand is heading are now moving to courts in Massachusetts. Arduino LLC is suing Arduino Srl for trademark infringement. The Make article points out:
The Arduino board itself is open source—one of the earliest decisions made by the group behind the board was to release the design files. Anyone can make an Arduino compatible board, or even an exact copy of the board. However the Arduino name, logo and graphics are protected by trademark which, while it hasn’t stopped the flow of cheap counterfeit boards, has at least meant that if you saw a board with the Arduino logo on you could be fairly sure of its provenance.
Unfortunately, that’s no longer the case. It’s difficult to determine what actually happened or is still happening, but right now we have the arduino.cc site we’re familiar with, the home of Arduino LLC, alongside arduino.org, a site created by the new Arduino Srl. Both use the same trade dress, logo, names, fonts—they even (mostly) call their products the same thing. At least at the moment, and at least to outsiders, there are two companies claiming to be “Arduino” and it’s rather hard to tell the difference.
Quick snapshots of both sites as of today show they are almost identical.
Arduino.cc
Arduino.org
For more information about the upcoming products and case, continue reading here.
