announcement about tradmark issue
To all Banana Pi SBC(Single-Board-Computer) users and developers:
We are very pleased to announce that, with the persistent effort made by Foxconn Technology Group, the on-going dispute regarding Banana Pi trademark and domain name has come to following resolution understandings among all involved parties:
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Foxconn insists that Banana Pi should be an open hardware platform, as long as it is used according to its usage guideline, any identity can develop and manufacture Banana Pi related products.
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Foxconn will assist in forming a non-profit organization(NPO) with un-biased creditable opensource community figures as board members, to handle all Banana Pi intellectual properties. Upon presented with an actual schedule and action of forming the NPO, LeMaker has agreed to transfer all approved Banana Pi trademarks to Foxconn temporarily before it is finally owned by the NPO when it is officially formed. LeMaker has signed a MOU with Foxconn in this regard.
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The to-be-formed NPO will publish the Banana Pi usage guideline and next generation SBC specifications, and will not make any trademark claim on all Banana Pi products already released on the market by that time.
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Based upon above understandings, Foxconn has encouraged both SinoVoip and LeMaker to cease all trademark claims and disputes, and remove all offensive statements on websites against each other. Foxconn has also suggested LeMaker to suspend application of Banana Pi trademark around the globe.
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Foxconn has been granted with this website(www.bananapi.org)'s editing right by its registered owner(Kevin) to maintain and update its contents, and will make this the Banana Pi information center before NPO is officially formed. Foxconn will also try its best to persuade Kevin to transfer the domain name registry to NPO and finally make it the official website of the NPO. Before that has happened, this website will be mirrored onwww.bananapi.org.tw and www.bananapi.org.cn ( under construting ).
Attached below are the key milestones of Banana Pi development, hoping to help explaining the reasons of its current trademark dispute:
2013.1 Foxconn Technology/SWD/Platform Development Department came up with the idea to develop a low-cost, high-performance opensource SBC platform, utilizing Foxconn’s development and manufacture capability.
2013.3 Decided the main goals of the project to be: Opensource, Education, and Public Interest.
2013.4 Proposed to use Freescale i.MX6 SoC platform, due to the familiarity with it by Foxconn Engineering staffs.
2013.4 Coined the product line as Banana Pi, and proposed to also look at Allwinner A20 SoC.
2013.6 Drafted the first product spec., Banana Pi project officially approved internally, to speed up hardware design also seeking help from external EE design house.
2013.7 Cancelled Freescale version, focused on A20 only.
2013.8 To be faithful to the opensource and community development concept, Foxconn chose not to apply for the Banana Pi trademark, and invite a Taiwan-based opensource community enthusiast (Kevin), introduced by Foxconn staff, to register www.bananapi.org domain name as the official website, to help promoting Banana Pi.
2013.10 Invited ShengZheng’s SinoVoip to become manufacture and marketing partner.
2013.11 Foxconn’s Banana Pi team travelled frequently to SinoVoip to assist with product validation, certification, and provided complete production line testing software.
2013.12 Allwinner A20 Banana Pi Pilot run for mass production.
2014.3 Invited ShengZheng’s LeMaker, who was introduced by SinoVoip, to help providing OS images on Banana Pi with initial software technology transfer from Banana Pi team.
2014.4 Allwinner A20 Banana Pi mass production.
2014.4 LeMaker launched Banana Pi forum on his www.lemaker.org website to support opensource software development on Banana Pi.
2014.4 LeMaker started to apply for Banana Pi trademark in China and around the globe.
2014.7 Joined Allwinner A20 Platform Opensource Community, and published Banana Pi kernel source on its Github.
2014.10 Banana Pi trademark dispute emerged.
BPI team
2015-5-23