On Wed, 2005-08-24 at 01:02 -0500, Mike McCarty wrote:
Umm. Before the trademark, yes. Not after.
Then this entire thread has been a useless discussion.
I know the point you were trying to make on source code, but it's not an option. Someone _can_ run "strings" on your binaries and possibly see a trademark. In fact, that's how many people using GPL licensed code not under the terms of the GPL get caught by their copyright holders.
If it's a publicly known name and distributed under the GPL, then it has very different rules on what trademark protections are allowed compared to something non-GPL. I've tried to cover those, and I think this point is very much moot given the fact that you _did_ use the trademark publicly.
Company A used names for the software and hardware it developed for more than 20 years. By an oversight, it did not trademark those names.
There is a case of "prior art/use" if it had been for 20 years.
They did have a some sort of agreement that Company A had some time to remove the use of Company B's trademark from all literature, source code, etc, and that Company B would not pursue Company A legally during the "grace period", in order that Company A could continue doing business w/o being stopped dead in its tracks.
Then there was some agreements in effect.
Company A should have sought other counsel, possibly litigation.
(This is the "official" version. Many at Company A considered that Company B knew about Company A's products and names, and deliberately abused the oversight to "steal" the goodwill and reputation associated with those names by trademarking them. I'm giving everyone the benefit of the doubt in my recounting. Certainly, Company A was well-known, and its products had a fine reputation at the time.)
Again, blame your poor counsel.