> Bluesky recently acquired the rights to the trademark for “ATPROTOCOL” and its variants—including “AT Protocol” and “atproto”—from another company that was threatening to take legal action preventing the company and others from using the term. Now that Bluesky owns it, the atproto community’s continued use of the mark can be protected.
The policy around usage is shared in the rest of the post but the goal is to make this very simple for everyone
>We plan to transfer that ownership to an appropriate, independent protocol governance organization in the future.
I never realized there is no independent governance org that should have registered this. So AT is governed by a single for-profit entity, that also runs the only viable instance?
I can’t imagine being a first time bootstrapped founder running a business without a trademark and not knowing that someone with bad faith would just register a trademark and just sue or order you to change your name.
These are the things that most startups account for when raising capital.
The policy around usage is shared in the rest of the post but the goal is to make this very simple for everyone
I never realized there is no independent governance org that should have registered this. So AT is governed by a single for-profit entity, that also runs the only viable instance?
Those can't register trademarks, of course.
> that also runs the only viable instance?
This is false, both in the framing ("instances") and in the viability of running alternative infrastructure.
Atsign, Inc. for this thing probably https://atsign.com/resources/white-papers/the-atprotocol/
These are the things that most startups account for when raising capital.