On Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 4:35 PM, Niclas Hedhman <nic...@hedhman.org> wrote:
> Yet, we have in the past had similar situations, where we have not > allowed this kind of position. In the end, you are now encouraging > that Apache WAVE, Google WAVE and Niclas WAVE are totally fine, > possibly not the same thing. > LucidImagination is told that "LucidWorks for Lucene" is a proper > 'association' back to the Apache project. Shouldn't they (in the same > spirit) then be allowed "Lucid Lucene" as well? > Didn't we require Yahoo TrafficServer to assign trademark, or we would > change the name? > Doug Cutting assign trademark to Lucene? > > Although I agree with you, Greg, that if Google has a problem, this is > likely not happening. My point is the reverse; If we allow "Google > Wave", "Niclas Wave" and so forth, we need to allow this for the > Lucenes, Hadoops and TrafficServers as well, otherwise 5 years down > the line, you need to go researching each and every projects history > to figure out how derived products may call themselves. I think it > severely complicates Trademark policies and blurs our definitions. > The word "Wave" is far more generic than "TrafficServer", "Lucene" or "Hadoop". When I did a search through the trademark database I found 62 trademarks on the word "wave". There are others that contain the word wave one of which is Google's "Google Wave" trademark. While I am neither a lawyer nor a trademark expert, it seems logical to conclude that given the many "Wave" trademarks and the fact that Google was granted a "Google Wave" trademark that Apache would have no problem obtaining a trademark on "Apache Wave" if they wished to. I think it's also fairly safe to conclude that Google is never going to assign a trademark with the word "Google" in it to another entity. If Google had a trademark on the plain word "Wave" in the communication/collaboration space, then I would expect that to be a problem. But, since they don't, I don't think this is an issue. Perhaps Google could issue some sort of official "We promise not to sue Apache Foundation over the use of the name 'Apache Wave'" just to make everyone happy. -Tad
