Re: firefox -> iceweasel package is probably not legal
"Arnoud Engelfriet" <arnoud@engelfriet.net> wrote in message
[🔎] 20061206152627.GA3592@stack.nl">news:[🔎] 20061206152627.GA3592@stack.nl...
MJ Ray wrote:
Don't trademarks apply even less to included executable file names than
to
package names? They're not even used to label anything supplied in
trade.
They are names of controls used to operate the machinery. I could call
my
firm's new car model 'steering wheel' and trademark it, but could I then
go
sue other makers for labelling a control in their cars 'steering wheel'?
In your example of the Steering Wheel trademark for cars versus
steering wheels in cars, a steering wheel is a functional name,. That
makes it entirely appropriate to refer to any steering wheel as a
steering wheel.
What I don't understand is why a package for the Iceweasel software
would carry the name firefox. There's no such thing as a firefox.
There is such thing as a firefox. In fact there are wo such things.
One is the red panda. Firefox is an unofficial nickname for that species,
but is a perfectly valid name. There is also a type of actual fox with the
nickname
firefox.
I will admit that Mozilla firefox did vastly increase the popularity of that
nickname for the red panda,
but it was not the source. The source of the nickname is a literal
translation
of a chinese nickname for the red panda.
Firefox is thus an "arbitray mark", which has a very similar level of
protection
as a fanciful mark, but jut slightly less.
Mozilla is fanciful mark.
Fanciful marks that are well established can be used to refute the validity
of
a new trademark far more easilly than other marks, even if the new mark is
in an feild
unrelated to that that the current fanciful mark. This is because customer
confusion is still
likely to result. A Mozilla car manufacture is is likely to have problems
because people
will likely assume it is related to Mozilla web browsers in some way.
There
are web browsers, distinguished by names such as Firefox, Iceweasel,
Opera and Internet Explorer. When a user does "apt-get install firefox"
he is not saying "I want to install a firefox", but "I want to install
the browser with the name Firefox".
I agree that they are not wanting to install "a firefox", because that would
be absurd.
How does one install a red panda?
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