[SoaS] What distro is sugaronastick.com distributing? (was: Re: SoaS decision panel: Do we ignore/protest two week deadline?/Starting deliberations?)

[Tim McNamara]

2009/10/10 Martin Dengler <martin at martindengler.com>

> b) what feedback from the SoaS / Sugar Labs community was sought
> before Solution Grove registered a domain name that was the exact same
> as a distribution the creation of which was substantially not done by
> Solution Grove (I was not involved at this point).
>

I'm new to the list, but to me http://sugaronastick.com is a very
interesting case. I didn't realise this site *wasn't* endorsed by Sugar
Labs, given that there is so much Sugar Labs branding on the site.

Solution Grove is using Sugar Labs' registered trademark prominently on the
front: the pictures of the USB sticks, the scrolling photos and very
prominently at the bottom. Without consent, it's very likely that this is
trade mark infringement. Therefore, I can only assume that there was very
explicit consent granted.

I understand that the test for trademark infringement is likely consumer
confusion. http://sugaronastick.com is using typefaces, colour schemes that
seem to be designed to show that Solution Grove is associated with Sugar
Labs. I personally was confused,  especially as the site is using Sugar
Lab's registered intellectual property.

There's another discussion though: is "Sugar on a Stick" a trade mark?

While (as far as I know) Sugar Labs has only registered "Sugar Labs", my
impression is that "Sugar on a Stick" is being used as an unregistered
trademark by Sugar Labs and the wider community. To me the term Sugar on a
Stick only means designates thing, which is Sugar run via a USB device (or
possibly emulation or virtualisation). On the flip side, it is partially
descriptive, so there's an argument that Sugar on a Stick can't function as
a trade mark.

Still, on the face of it, I think there's a strong chance that a court would
find that Sugar on a Stick is a trade mark. Therefore, just for the
avoidance of doubt, I would have assumed that there would have been explicit
consent granted.

Could someone fill me in the details of what actually happened?


Regards,

Tim
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