Re: On the uselessness of Debian trademarks.
On 2004-05-07 07:31:27 +0100 Ean Schuessler <ean@brainfood.com> wrote:
With the Debian trademark we want use that is almost entirely
unenforced
except for a few particular (and somewhat poorly defined) situations.
The only well-defined situation I can see at the moment is when
someone attempts to claim debian association, backing or endorsement
fraudulently. I believe that is covered adequately by other laws
everywhere where we could enforce it. Is that correct?
[...] Our only alternative is to
religiously shut down everyone who is using the word Debian without
our
explicit permission. That isn't very Debian. Why not just cut to the
chase?
Not only is it not very Debian, but accurate use of the Debian mark to
refer to our Debian doesn't look like something we can stop with
trademarking in the UK:
"Nothing in the preceding provisions of this section shall be
construed as preventing the use of a registered trade mark by any
person for the purpose of identifying goods or services as those of
the proprietor or a licensee." (Trade Marks Act 1994 s.10(6), readable
at http://www.bailii.org/uk/legis/num_act/tma1994121/s10.html amongst
others).
There are caveats about honest practices, but that's the basic. For
example, if someone claims to sell "Debian for Desktops" which
includes the Debian distribution and their own desktop setup (and
possibly packages), I'm not sure that we could do anything to stop
them.
We could use copyright licences to police the trademark a bit more
(such as the logo licences do), but that seems pretty clearly
non-free.
I'm not sure if Chris is right, but I see the logic in his reasoning.
If
anyone can put this email in front of any attorneys, I would be very
curious
to hear their thoughts.
I've suggested it to a few. I hope some reply.
--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know.
http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
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