URBAN HOMESTEADING™ Trademarked?

Anyone with even a passing interest in sustainability has likely come across the phrase "urban homesteading," a term which Wikipedia says "can refer to several different things: programs by local, state, and federal agencies in the USA who work to help get people into city homes, a form of squatting, or the activity of urban gardening, with the purpose of reducing one's impact on the environment." It's a term frequently used by sustainability experts, authors, bloggers, and advocates. And now it's trademarked. What?

That's right, the Dervaes Family has filed trademarks on the terms "urban homestead" and "urban homesteading."  The family runs a truly remarkable urban homestead right in my neighborhood in Pasadena. I've had the opportunity in the past to speak with them and see their educational presentation on how to implement some of the practices they use at your own home. They do wonderful work in demonstrating just how productive a tiny piece of city land can be, producing up to 7,000 pounds of produce, milk, and eggs from just one-fifth of an acre of land. The Dervaes are, in many ways, an inspiration. All of this is part of what makes the family's recent actions so baffling and infuriating.

In what can only be described as a blatantly capitalistic move, the Dervaes Institute has successfully registered as trademarks such generic terms as "urban homesteading," "freedom garden," and "grow the future." Despite the claim on the Institute's Web site that the Dervaes "believe in giving freely to others," they recently sent out a barrage of letters to Web sites, bloggers, and authors that use these terms, informing them that they are legally required to either attribute these terms to the Dervaes Institute or replace them with supposedly more generic terms like "modern homesteading" or "urban sustainability projects."

It may sound silly (and let's face it, it is), but the family has successfully managed to shut down several urban homesteading Facebook pages, including that of the Institute of Urban Homesteading, an Oakland group that teaches workshops on animal husbandry, canning, and preserving. The Dervaes even sent one of these letters to the Santa Monica Public Library for hosting a free urban homesteading event. This is not the behavior of people who, as they claim, are "extremely supportive of those who help to spread information regarding sustainable living." This is a distasteful attempt to capitalize on a term that rightly belongs to everyone and has been in use since at least the 1970s, long before the the Dervaes started their urban homestead.

Needless to say, the sustainable food community is not pleased. Reactions have ranged from scoffing incredulity to scathing outrage. The family has shut down their Facebook page and closed all comments on their blog in response to the wave of anger and complaints received. Yet the Devaes' response has only fanned these flames by calling the criticism "lies" and "hoaxes," and they have only attempted to solidify their legal claim to these terms.

They don't seem to be convincing anyone. A Facebook group has sprung up in defense of our right to use the terms "urban homestead" and "urban homesteading" without crediting this family for a concept that they did not invent. The Dervaes Family needs to understand that their actions are doing far more to hurt the urban sustainability effort than to help it. Sign our petition telling the Dervaes to cut it out, and drop the trademark on "urban homestead" and "urban homesteading."

Photo credit: David Owen via Flickr