Re: [RFH] answering trademark@d.o inquiries
On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 9:36 AM, Stefano Zacchiroli <leader@debian.org> wrote:
> [ Mail-Followup-To: -project ]
>
> On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 12:57:40PM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote:
>> This policy states that the contact for trademark questions is
>> trademark@debian.org. Where does this address go? I think it's important
>> for transparency that the responsible parties be listed on
>> <http://www.debian.org/intro/organization>; I can't tell if this is an alias
>> for leader@, or a team, or what. (/etc/aliases on master mentions it going
>> to leader@, but this entry is commented out.)
>
> Right, thanks for asking.
>
> Short answer: trademark@d.o is at present an alias for leader@d.o.
>
> The story goes that, in the past, the trademark policy used to point
> directly to leader@d.o for inquiries. I think that is not scalable and
> also unwise, as 1-year DPL terms account for very little memory about
> procedures, trademark knowledge, etc. So a group of people answering
> trademark inquiries might be useful. That group should *also* include
> the DPL, as giving specific trademark licenses is an action on Debian
> assets; but other inquiries (e.g. "is this nominative use?") can easily
> be answered by others.
>
> Creating trademark@d.o has simply been a first step toward that goal.
>
> Now, the next step is finding other people willing to help with those
> inquiries and add them behind those alias. It would also be appropriate
> to have some RT queue for it, to avoid losing track of requests
> (something which happens way to often with other mail aliases that are
> not associated to any sort of BTS).
>
> So: anyone up to help with this? The load is very light: in 2012 we've
> received only 16 requests. Still, it is important to reply promptly and
> professionally to them. The requirements to help are some minimal
> familiarity with trademark law --- "minimal" because all non-obvious
> cases should better be routed to SPI legal support.
I can help. I'm pretty familiar with *US* trademark law, as this field
is an area of interest for me, and my wife is a practicing trademark
attorney, who was a trademark examiner at the USPTO earlier in her
career. Please let me know what I can do to help.
> Regarding documentation on www.d.o/intro/organization of who is behind
> trademark@d.o: sure, that's a good idea. Patches/commits welcome :-)
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Cheers.
> --
> Stefano Zacchiroli . . . . . . . zack@upsilon.cc . . . . o . . . o . o
> Maître de conférences . . . . . http://upsilon.cc/zack . . . o . . . o o
> Debian Project Leader . . . . . . @zack on identi.ca . . o o o . . . o .
> « the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »
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