On Mon, 2014-03-10 at 14:28 +0000, David G.Miller wrote:
So, while CentAP or some of the other suggestions may not infringe on CentOS, you could still get a C&D from a Red Hat lawyer telling you not to use CentAP. Unless you can afford a really good trademark lawyer to fight the C&D, you'll have to discontinue use of CentAP (or whatever).
USA patent law has differences from EU patent law.
I'm not a lawyer either. Once defence is whether RH effectively "stole" the Centos brand name or colluded to pay money to persons whose property it wasn't to transfer the brand name from general community ownership, or offer no opposition to RH registering a brand name which was the de facto property of a large international community.
If RH agreement eventually went "bad" could the Centos community get their brand name back from RH ? Think not.