Re: Origins of debian "swirl" / does Debian want to keep its trademark?
Henning Makholm wrote:
> Scripsit Nathanael Nerode <neroden@twcny.rr.com>
>
>>Henning Makholm wrote:
>
>
>>>On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine that the Elektrostore
>>>swirl is independently created starting from a straight brush stroke.
>
>
>>Now, Debian really ought to be complaining about this.
>
>
> There was an attempt to make this happen back in 2002, but it
> apparently floundered due to confusion about whether SPI or
> one of Debian's constitutional offices had the initiative.
>
> That being said, I am not sure that we could make a trademark
> complaint stick under Swedish law. The Swedish law (varumärkeslag
> 1960:644) seems to establish a standard of "confusability", and it
> might be argued that by making the swirl blue and turning it such that
> it invokes an the idea of an "e", it is not anymore sufficiently
> confusable with Debian's logo that the trademark is violated.
You don't think it is? It was pretty confusable-looking to me.
> Copyright could be relevant, but who actually owns the copyright to
> the Debian swirl? Was it transferred from the winner of the logo
> contest to SPI, or do we just have a license?
We just have a license IIRC.
>>They're in the same industry so there's a real risk of confusion..
>
>
> Not really. Elektrostore.se sells white goods - cookers,
> refrigerators, dishwashers, washing machines, etc. Most of these items
> probably contain microprocessors, but I doubt if any of them run Linux.
Oh! My mistake. Then we're probably OK trademark-defense-wise.
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