Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Yahoo! News Story - Nextel to Protect Walkie-Talkie Business Legally

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Nextel to Protect Walkie-Talkie Business Legally

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030620/tc_nm/telecoms_pushtotalk_dc

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Technology - Reuters

Nextel to Protect Walkie-Talkie Business Legally

Fri Jun 20, 6:52 PM ET

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By Sinead Carew

NEW YORK (Reuters) -

Nextel Communications Inc. (Nasdaq:NXTL - news)
said on Friday it would use trademark law to stop emerging
rivals of its 10-year-old walkie-talkie service from using the
term "push-to-talk" to describe their products.

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But lawyers said Nextel, the No. 5 U.S. wireless telephone
company and so far the only one to offer a feature on a phone
that allows customers to talk at the push of a button, could
face an uphill battle to protect the term.

"You can't use trademark law to remove words from the
dictionary and prevent their ordinary use," said Steven Bauer,
a partner in the intellectual property group at Boston law firm
Testa, Hurwitz & Thibeault.

"They may have been the first ones to call it push-to-talk
but being the first one to call it that doesn't mean you're the
only one who can call it that," said Bauer who argued that the
phrase was too generic to be a strong trademark.

Nextel, which also uses the brand name Direct Connect to
describe the service, said in a statement on Friday the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office had approved registration of Push
to Talk and its abbreviated form PTT as trademarks.

"It makes smart and strategic sense to protect a name that
refers to a brand," said Nextel spokesperson Audrey Schaefer.

If another company used the term push-to-talk Nextel would
"notify the organization that Nextel owns the rights to that
label," Schaefer said.

Nextel's service has been a huge hit among small work
groups such as technicians, construction workers and salesmen
in the field who rely on the push-to-talk feature to ask
colleagues for answers to quick questions. Such walkie-talkie
interactions are a convenient alternative to having to dial a
number on a phone.

A spokesperson for Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ - news), the No. 1 U.S.
phone company, said Nextel's move would not interfere with its
plans to soon launch a competitive service.

"Nothing that Nextel said today is going to delay our
plans," said Andrea Linskey. "We'll have a walkie-talkie type
feature on our network later this year."

Verizon could launch its rival service as early as next
month, industry sources said.

Schaefer said its Push-to-Talk trademark was registered on
the supplemental trademark list, which means that it is much
easier to contest and its PTT trademark was approved for the
principal trademark list, which offers more protection.

"The whole reason (a name) is on the supplemental list is
because the suspicion is it may be the industry standard way to
describe the function or may become the way," Gray Cary Ware &
Freidenrich attorney Jeffrey Blumenfeld.

As subscriber growth slowed in the U.S. market, wireless
service providers began looking at push to talk and other new
ways to attract customers and encourage them to spend money.

Nextel's walkie-talkie service attracted attention among
competitors because it wins the company high-value customers in
areas including construction, transportation and government.

Another rival Sprint PCS has said it would launch
walkie-talkie services later this year, while AT&T Wireless
(NYSE:AWE - news) said recently it could begin testing walkie-talkie
technology as early as this year.

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