[Histling-l] Warning: Rogue Conference on Historical Linguistics

[John Charles Smith]

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

You may recall that some time ago (on 6 July 2020) I circulated a warning to the HistLing list about WASET, an organizer of fake or ‘predatory’ conferences — see

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Academy_of_Science,_Engineering_and_Technology

— who were ‘organizing’ something called an ‘International Conference on Historical Linguistics’ which had nothing to do with the Intenational Society for Historical Lnguistics.

They are now at it again — see https://waset.org/historical-linguistics-conference-in-july-2024-in-paris .  This ‘Potemkin’ conference, like its predecessor, has nothing to do with ISHL’s meetings, the next two of which are in Heidelberg this September and in Santiago de Chile in 2025.  So I must repeat my warning of three years ago.


Although WASET are annoying, they have not impacted on ISHL in any serious way, as far as I am aware.  I took legal advice from Intellectual Property lawyers, who were of the opinion that WASET could not lay claim to the Society’s name, as we were there first (as our name is not a trade mark, the relevant concept here is the common law tort of ‘passing off’ — see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_off ).  As regards the name of the Conference, the advice was as follows:



‘You would probably have difficulty establishing a passing off case in the UK. [In any case, WASET is registered in Azerbaijan, and it is unclear what Azerbaijan has in the way of unfair competition laws.]  Most countries do have legal prohibitions against deceptive business practices as part of their general laws against unfair competition, but I'm not sure how successful they’ve been against these pseudo-conference [organizers], given they are still operating.  I think the FTC has gone after a few in the USA.  I think you’d need a more specific example of deceptive acts in a specific place.  It doesn’t help that the name of your conference is so descriptive.  You can’t prevent others from organizing conferences on the subject of historical linguistics completely, and there are a limited number of ways to describe such a thing (in English, anyway).’



One possibility might be to rebrand ICHL as ‘The International Conference on Historical Linguistics organized by the International Society for Historical Linguistics’ — but that would be a mouthful.  Or we could try to trade-mark ‘ICHL’.  But that would be time-consuming and expensive.  It may be that we just have to put up with the situation — I think very few genuine historical linguists are going to be fooled by WASET.



We can discuss these matters at the Heidelberg Business Meeting, if people wish.  I can certainly mention the issue there.



All the best,



JC

—

John Charles Smith
St Catherine's College, Oxford, OX1 3UJ, UK
Research Centre for Romance Linguistics, University of Oxford
College phone: +44 1865 271700; College fax: +44 1865 271768
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