Todd Walton wrote:
On 9/6/05, Neil Schneider <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
You're telling me that a judge would say, "Well, I see that the word
Linux has existed for quite some time, but you Bad Person, actually
registered it last week, and so you have the legal right to
appropriate its use."?
If the misappropriation of that mark was done in full visibility of the
mark's owner, yes. That's the law. BTW, it also works with respect to
property. If someone squats on your property right under your nose long
enough (especially if they develop it) - it's theirs [1].
I respect Linus's autonomy in his decision making, and if he wants to
exercise a legal power granted to him, well... what am I going to do
about it? But it seems to me that if being able to use the word
"Linux" were to require legal game-playing of this sort, I'd rather
just find another word. A person's got to have priorities.
-todd
So, it's okay if you decide to start up your own little tropical fish
and bookstore franchise called Amazon?
Do you think you'd get away with that for long?
Do you think you could start an auto repair business and call it
AutoZone and get away with it?
How about a little neighborhood mom & pop grocery store called WAL*MART?
Maybe you remember a little freebie magazine we had here in San Diego
called The Byte Buyer. For those who don't know the story, The Byte
Buyer was forced to change its name by McGraw-Hill because the 900 lb.
gorilla publisher thought that someone might confuse /Byte Buyer/ with
/Byte Magazine/.
It's as simple as that. One either polices their trade or service mark
or they lose control of it. God knows we've all read enough stories
about Hormel reminding people of the difference between SPAM and spam.
Linus Torvalds owns the trademarked name of Linux. He has contracted to
someone else to police that trademark for him because they have more
legal expertise, money and time than he.
Sounds reasonable and fair to me.
If you want to open a little market on your corner called 7-11, you'll
pay Southland Corporation a lot more money than Linus expects for people
hitching their carts to the Linux bandwagon.
If you don't think this is fair then work to change the law. Applying
your "I'd rather just find another word" plan means you're soon going
find yourself amidst a growing pile of discarded words.
***
[1] It happened to my brother's neighbor. An adjacent property's garage
was built by the developer over six feet past the property line. It
wasn't found out for decades. The city had to redefine the property line
to insure the garage and its adjoining house remained intact.
--
Best Regards,
~DJA.
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