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We can't expect to claim exclusive rights to the name "Artemis" as an exclusive trademark. It's the name of the moon goddess, so we might as well attempt to trademark the word "Jesus" or "moon." Or "Bob". That's why we usually emphasize the graphic logos and the full name of "The Artemis Project."
We can and do, however, claim exclusive rights to use the name "Artemis" as a trade name representing a product line of commercial merchandise and associated industries related to our lunar development program. In 1994, fifteen of the original Artemis Project founders formed The Lunar Resources Company to hold the key intellectual property of the Artemis Project and be its program integrator. Obviously, if someone were to start marketing things using a logo with an image of the moon and the name Artemis, or to start a club named the Artemis Society, there would be quite a hooraw.
Meanwhile, others use the name of the moon goddess for other, unrelated business programs. The European Space Agency has been developing a small common satellite carrier named "Artemis." It has nothing to do with the moon or manned space flight, so there should be no confusion between that spacecraft and The Artemis Project. They've applied to register the trade name for their satellite and its support facilities, and we've decided not to challenge it. Other than regretting that they're using the name of the moon goddess for a spacecraft which is unrelated to the moon, we don't have any heartburn about the ESA project. (They could find many more appropriate gods in the pantheon. ESA is using "A.R.T.E.M.I.S." because it makes a cute acronym.) Nothing we're doing diminishes the value of their spacecraft, and explaining the difference might actually get us a bit more publicity for the Artemis Project; which in turn would be of great benefit to ESA.
From the standpoint of the Artemis Project, the question is whether the European Space Agency's program will cost us sales. We haven't thought of any reasonable scenario for that to happen. I doubt we'd sell even one less Moonbase Barbie just because someone at ESA doesn't know his Greek mythology. And of course from ESA's standpoint there's zero chance they'll produce one less spacecraft carrier because of the existence of the Artemis Project. The Artemis Project's publicity might help them get customers for their spacecraft, but that doesn't hurt what we're doing so it's an everybody-wins scenario.
This amusing serendipity continues. Alenia Spazio, the Italian firm which makes ESA's A.R.T.E.M.I.S. satellite and the structure for the Spacehab module, has started using the intials "ASI". That "ASI" started out as the Space Division of Alenia Aerospazio, but apparently have graduated to full company status with the recent addition of a major portion of the International Space Station to their stable of products.
During the days of the Space Exploration Initiative, NASA did a Common Lunar Lander study where the lander stage was named "Artemis." That's a much more appropriate use of the name, albeit much less ambitious than what we're planning. That project was abandoned about three years ago with the changing of the guard in Washington, D.C.
The Space Exploration Intiative was President Bush's idea; so of course President Clinton isn't interested in it. However, if NASA were to resurrect the Common Lunar Lander study at this point, we would ask them to choose a different nickname for the lander. That would be too close to what we're doing. NASA gets a lot of publicity for its programs, so if they did a moon lander named Artemis it really could cost us sales.
Besides spacecraft, there are lots of other businesses named "Artemis." She's as ubiquitous as "Bob." Some of those folks might even want to capitalize on the Artemis Project by joining the team with their products. For instance, Artemis-Broussard watches would be a natural. There are at least two, and maybe four, lines of intimate apparel in the world which used the name "Artemis." They're all out of production now, but when we start producing Moon Goddess Lingerie, we ought to contact those manufacturers first.
We even considered registering the "artemis.com" domain before choosing the shorter "asi" name. It turns out the "artemis" domain is now in use by a research firm near San Fransisco. Dana Carson contacted the owner to find out if we had a problem and got a very positive response -- he said he thought Artemis was an excellent name for a lunar base, and wishes us well.
The most direct name confusion comes from a project-planning computer program named Artemis. The Artemis computer program was developed by the U. S. Department of Defense and at least for a while was marketed as a DOS-based program named Artemis Project. It doesn't have much to do with moon flights, but there's a chance we might even use that program to plan parts of the Artemis Project if it's still in use a few years from now.
Locally, here in Harris County, Texas, there are at least 50 businesses named "Artemis" and we're not even a strong Greek-ethnic community. Extrapolate that to the whole world, and you can see just how important the moon goddess has become to human commerce.
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