[IAEP] [SLOBS] [SLOBs] Scenarios for licensing our trademarks

[Sascha Silbe]

[Restricting discussion to iaep as I'm not allowed to cross-post]

On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 06:40:52PM -0500, Chris Ball wrote:

> (How do others feel about this?)
I feel that our trademark policy is getting much too strong, even 
bordering on not legally enforcible. Example:

[Computer running Sugar]
>> You want to put a big picture of the sugar home screen and a CONTAINS 
>> SUGAR decal on the box because then it will look a bit like the XO.
[...]
>> (Sean) [...] - the company should apply for a license for our label 
>> program.

To me this is "fair use" of the trademark name. The manufacturer "is 
using the mark to describe accurately an aspect of its products" (using 
the words chosen by Wikipedia [1]).

A nice counter-example to what I'd like Sugar to do is the Mozilla 
route: Debian was required to rename packages and remove logos etc. 
because they made changes to the software (like using the CAs globally 
configured by the local system administrator instead of the ones shipped 
by Mozilla). Not only is this undesired for Sugar (unlike Mozilla 
Corporation we're rooted in the open software movement and are highly 
dependent on volunteer work), but would also cause the trademark to be 
used much less often - contrary to what Sean wants I suppose.


[1] 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Limits_and_defenses_to_claims_of_trademark_infringement

CU Sascha

-- 
http://sascha.silbe.org/
http://www.infra-silbe.de/
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