Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> 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.
How so? Linus Torvald published the Linux(R) kernel some time back.
Later, he trademarked the name "Linux". Now, he is enforcing the
trademark. If he pushes things (and he may have to, if the trademark
is to survive) he may have to require that anyone republishing his
stuff, even under GPL, remove the string, even from source, and
even if it doesn't appear in the object.
> 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.
I'm not an expert at Japanese law. The trademark was filed in Japan.
Company A wanted to do business in Japan.
"Prior art" is a matter of patent law, not trademark. I dunno about
"use".
>>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.
I got the impression that it was a "handshake". IOW, "Yuhv got
24 hours to git out-a-town, then I'm comin' gunnin' fer yuh.
> Company A should have sought other counsel, possibly litigation.
Are you an expert at Japanese law?
>>(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.
For the oversight, certainly.
Mike
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