Re: On the uselessness of Debian trademarks.

[Nathanael Nerode <neroden@twcny.rr.com>]

Stephen Frost wrote:

> * Michael Poole (mdpoole@troilus.org) wrote:
>> Stephen Frost writes:
>> > I don't get it.  Doesn't this mean, also, that in the UK people *could*
>> > sell shirts with the Coke logo on them?  In which case it would seem to
>> > me that the reasons above for having a trademark in the UK would be
>> > perfectly legit and very reasonable and enforceable, and their intended
>> > use?
>> 
>> I doubt it -- selling shirts would be a commercial purpose outside
>> "identifying goods or services as those of the proprietor or a
>> licensee."
> 
> Alright, now I think we might be getting somewhere.  So the issue here
> is that, because selling a t-shirt with a trademark on it is outside the
> scope of "identifying goods [...]" it must therefore be enforced in
> order to claim that we're enforcing the trademark and have the right to
> *keep* the trademark then.
A-ha.

> Given that's the case- do we actually need a *contract* with people
> using the trademark outside of "identifying goods [...]"?  Attempting to
> find a more technical solution- would it be possible to notify people we
> find who use the trademark in a way we approve of outside of
> "identifying goods [...]" that we're cool with them using it and to
> track such uses in a database maintained by SPI?  Doesn't seem to me
> like that'd be too much effort on our part, or onus on their part.  Of
> course, we could say that we'd prefer if they could notify us so that we
> could review their use and approve it and add them to our database ahead
> of time.

Or indeed, could Debian give everyone a reasonable trademark license,
allowing them to have commercial purposes outside "identifying goods [...]"
as long as they never used the trademark to refer to anyone *but* Debian?

-- 
There are none so blind as those who will not see.