[KLUG Members] Fedora Tradmark Name is Challenged

[Robert G. Brown]

On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 10:53:14 -0500, Adam Tauno Williams <adam@morrison-ind.com> wrote:

>> Well, that's unfortunate.  
>> Let's hope RH handles this minor conflict better than Mozilla handled the 
>> Firebird project-name conflict.

>Having similairy named products is legitimate assuming they do not occupy the
>same market-space. Is a document management system and a Linux distribution in
>the same market-space?  They are both "software",  but are they the same kind 
>of "software"?  
WE do not think so, since we're "in the industry", and know the difference.
There are some generalizations that can be made helpfully (although IANAL);
one is that the more specialized the market for a product is, the less chance
there is for confusion. The courts presume that people in more specialized 
markets know what they're buying.

>Where is the line that delineates one market-space from another? 
>How granular is a "space"?  These things aren't exactly straight forward;  I
>think the Mozilla/Firebird/Firebird fracas garned far more attention then it
>meritted.
I'm not familiar with the above case, but I do know that good names are 
hard to find, and it is often the first impulse to fight for the name 
rather than negotiate or compromise.

Generally the plaintiff is these sorts of cases has to show that harm has 
been done to the business as a result of some newer user of the name. Remedy
isn't mere compensation in money; someone has to go through a name change
(in most every state I've seen).

>To me it seemed like the usual procedure for how these things are
>resolved;  we have  a legal system based on the concept of "adversaries".
The only thing adversarial about our system is that both sides have a 
chance to show their (conflicting) sides of a case, and they often
confront each other in litigation. Most cases are decided by arbitration
or negotiation, and most good cases are built on their own merits, not on
tearing down the other side points. This is true of civil proceedings, 
other rules apply to criminal cases.

I think KLUG needs a resident on-line Attorney to write about these kinds
of situations! :)
							Regards,
							---> RGB <---