On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 04:04:34PM -0400, Brian Gupta wrote: > Generally speaking, as a matter of law, it would be better if we > registered our logo as our Trademark. We had also gotten advice from > our legal counsel (SFLC) encouraging us to do so. > > I don't believe any changes would be required to our Trademark policy > to accomodate the change from "common law" to "registered" trademark, > we'd just have the benefit that we'd have an easier time protecting > it, if we ever found a need to do so. […] I think the above two points are the crux of the issue. We have been advised various times, by those who help us with our trademarks, to go ahead and turn the logo into a registered trademark. The main (theoretical) drawback one could think of is that, then, we should become more strict in our trademark policy, due to the new status of the logo. But if that is not the case, i.e. if we can keep the same guidelines that we are _currently_ advertising for the logo, than that drawback is moot. Brian, you seem to believe that this is indeed the case, i.e. that we won't need to change our trademark policy. I suggest to verify that with our legal counsel and, if it is the case, to go ahead and do the registration. It won't change a bit for us and current logo users (as the guidelines will remain unchanged), but it will help the people who are helping us with our trademark matters. And might come in handy in case we end up in some nasty legal fight about Debian visual identity. Just my 0.02 EUR, Cheers. -- Stefano Zacchiroli . . . . . . . zack@upsilon.cc . . . . o . . . o . o Maître de conférences . . . . . http://upsilon.cc/zack . . . o . . . o o Former Debian Project Leader . . @zack on identi.ca . . o o o . . . o . « the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature