Manuel Wolfshant wrote: > John Summerfield wrote: >> Thiago Avelino wrote: >> >>> The question is this. exists, the body of registered trademarks and >>> patents, a company with the name openoffice. has only one image. >>> nothing more. This is why the open sun, in Brazil, was broffice >>> >> Originally, you said "patents and trademarks." >> >> > he made a mistake. He may have, but I'd rather Thiago explain what he really means. > > >> People are asking about patents, but you keep explaining why trademarks >> are a problem. > once again: the name "OpenOffice" is registered in Brazil by a private > company and therefore it cannot be used by a software product. To > circumvent this, the local community is using the name :BrOffice" instead. yes, he said that several times. It has nothing to do with the patent claim which, as you say, may be a mistake. I was curious about the trademark issue, so I pointed Google at Brasil and did a search. I didn't find the trademark owner (which doesn't mean a lot), but whoever it is is going to have a lot of trouble defending the mark. Whatever the folk behind broffice.org do, there are lots of other people using the term "open office" (which isn't its name - another trademark problem I think) to refer to the software. -- Cheers John -- spambait 1aaaaaaa at coco.merseine.nu Z1aaaaaaa at coco.merseine.nu -- Advice http://webfoot.com/advice/email.top.php http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375 You cannot reply off-list:-)