Chia Network is enforcing trademark against Chia Forks

Edit: I reached out to the ChiaDogeCoin developer and got their side of the story here.

Chia Network has begun attempting to enforce their CHIA trademarks against the developers of certain Chia Fork altcoins. In their keybase channel today Gene indicated that they are prepared to go as far as to try and seize domains from these altcoins. Specifically ChiaDogeCoin is under fire right now, and I suspect they aren’t the only ones.

This is an interesting situation, and different than my own, because I really do think Chia Network has an enforceable trademark here. I haven’t consulted a lawyer about this, since its not my problem and I’m not made of money, but this could be one of those situations where not protecting their mark as it relates to cryptocurrency projects could cause them issues later on down the line.

I am no fan of companies seizing domain names from anyone on any grounds and I suspect this kind of behaviour will alienate some in the cryptocurrency space and the open source technology world, but I also see their point. This is a tricky one, and my honest recommendation for any Chia forks looking for a name to avoid using the Chia word in their name unless they are really looking for a fight. This is a developing story, and I have a feeling there will be more to this.

Update: I have reached out to Chia Network for comment and Gene Hoffman had this to say. He is pretty clear about where their line is here.

Copy-Paste forks of the Chia blockchain may certainly not use the Chia name to describe their fork. And we will slowly but surely shut them down at all their service providers. As on open source project, many copy-paste forks have been quite capable of finding a non infringing name.

Gene Hoffman, COO and President Chia Network

I have also reached out to the creator of ChiaDogeCoin for comment.

Update 2: It appears that the ChiaDogeCoin creator is claiming to be “the former developers of the Chia project” which is a suspicious claim at best. This one is not looking good.