CEINTEC[1] has sent a response[2] to Barrapunto[3] in which they say
that the Debian trademark is registered by a person, related to the
academy but not by the academy itself. They say that this person
registered the trademark to protect it, and that they're confident that
he wants to give it "to any National Institution which can guarantee
that the whole community can use freely the Debian trademark, and which
compromises to renew it and enforce it while the distribution exists".
Although the mail says that he will give the trademark to a "National
Institution" I (and other developers) believe that SPI should directly
manage it, because if not we should "open" a local SPI branch here in
Spain[4]. And following Spanish law, any foreign organization can
register a trademark here in Spain, as long as any Spanish citizen or
organization can do the same in the country of the foreign
registrar[5]&[6]. So, perhaps, somebody of SPI should officially
contact the registrar of the trademark and try to get in transferred
to SPI.
By other hand, we have received an answer from an spanish lawyer who
helps in the translation team, and seems that, as Debian is a
trademark known in computers community, we could try to declare the
register invalid. I have asked him to post the mail translated to
debian-legal, but you can read the Spanish post in debian-l10n-spanish
archives[7].
Please, could anybody from SPI try to handle this? And, in addition,
could SPI discuss if registering Debian and Debian logo Europe wide
worth?
If you need some kind of help with the language, please, contact any
of us:
Jose Carlos Garcia Sogo <jsogo@debian.org>
Jacobo Tarrio <jacobo@debian.org>
Jordi Mallach <jordi@debian.org>
Thanks,
-------
[1] ceintec@ceintec.com
[2] http://barrapunto.com/article.pl?sid=02/09/04/1925233&mode=nested&threshold=
[3] http://www.barrapunto.com
[4] This will make that there were other country in the UE in which
donations could be accepted. This is other problem SPI should take care, as
right now isn't clear if donations from any UE country to German SPI are
tax-deductable.
[5] http://www.oepm.es/internet/legisla/signos/iii23lmar.htm#art10 (in
Spanish)
[6] http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/tac/doc/basic/appcontent.htm#AppName
[7] http://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-spanish/2002/debian-l10n-spanish-200209/msg00022.html
--
Jose Carlos Garcia Sogo
jsogo@debian.org
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