Re: Answers to questions raised about registering the Debian Logo as our trademark
Brian Gupta brian.gu...@brandorr.com I finally had a chance to discuss with our legal counsel, and have some answers to the questions raised in the discussion. Thanks for this. It covers all I remember. One small question: 3) Should we register in the US only or register internationally? A: Being as US registration is mandatory to extend internationally start with the US, and then later Debian can make a decision on international registration. What's the source on that? I thought I'd seen trademarks start in other places and then extend internationally. 4) What is the impact of registering in the US only? A: We would still only have Common law protection in those countries we don't register the logo. We'd gain no benefit in those jurisdictions, but it wouldn't hurt us either. [...] Well, I've few US customers buying debian, it would probably be allowed as honest description, and I'm not in the US anyway, so I think I don't care too much about the US registration. I still feel that this seems like a waste of project money (are many infringers in the US anyway?) and potentially a blank cheque ($3347 plus maintenance and costs of enforcement necessary to prevent it becoming generic), but I'd prefer those who are based and trading significantly with the debian logo in the US to make the decision. Shall I poll http://www.debian.org/consultants/#US or has someone? Hope that explains, -- MJ Ray, Software Engineering Specialist, www.software.coop member. Emails 2x most days: please use i...@software.coop for faster answer. Turo Technology LLP, reg'd in England+Wales, number OC303457 Registered Office: 384 Lynn Road, Setchey, Norfolk GB-PE33 0PD -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e1umic1-0001dv...@bletchley.towers.org.uk
Re: Debating difficult development issues in essay form
On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 12:50:56PM +0100, Lars Wirzenius wrote: Technical hint: subpages syntax in Moin can be quite frustrating, especially for those who do not often edit Moin pages. It might be useful to have some sample (dangling) links for subpages pointing to alternative positions directly in the page template. (Of course I can implement the above changes myself in the wiki, but first I need to know if you agree with them or not :-)) Please do that. I obviously failed to do it with the current wiki setup (the release essay is not a subpage of the Debate page, for example). Sorry for the delay. I've now finished doing that: JessieReleaseProcess is now a subpage of Debate, and AlwaysReleasableTesting a subpage of JessieReleaseProcess, as recommended in /Debate. I've fixed all the links I've found, but redirect pages are in place, so nothing should be broken by the change. I've also created DebateTemplate, with the correct syntax for subpages. In the meantime, it seems that other users of /Debate have gone their way, though :-), with the main essay residing in the debate page, rather than in dedicated pages. This is a bit unfortunate, as it makes more difficult to understand the positions at play, which should have one essay per position, if I understand the approach you were trying to propose properly. I haven't attempted to fix that, though. Hope this helps, Cheers. -- Stefano Zacchiroli . . . . . . . z...@upsilon.cc . . . . o . . . o . o Maître de conférences . . . . . http://upsilon.cc/zack . . . o . . . o o Former Debian Project Leader . . @zack on identi.ca . . o o o . . . o . « the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club » signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Debating difficult development issues in essay form
On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 04:03:59PM +0200, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: Sorry for the delay. I've now finished doing that: JessieReleaseProcess is now a subpage of Debate, and AlwaysReleasableTesting a subpage of JessieReleaseProcess, as recommended in /Debate. I've fixed all the links I've found, but redirect pages are in place, so nothing should be broken by the change. I've also created DebateTemplate, with the correct syntax for subpages. Thank you, Stefano. -- http://www.cafepress.com/trunktees -- geeky funny T-shirts http://gtdfh.branchable.com/ -- GTD for hackers -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130612140821.ga4...@mavolio.codethink.co.uk
Re: Answers to questions raised about registering the Debian Logo as our trademark
MJ Ray dijo [Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 11:49:09AM +0100]: I finally had a chance to discuss with our legal counsel, and have some answers to the questions raised in the discussion. Thanks for this. It covers all I remember. One small question: 3) Should we register in the US only or register internationally? A: Being as US registration is mandatory to extend internationally start with the US, and then later Debian can make a decision on international registration. What's the source on that? I thought I'd seen trademarks start in other places and then extend internationally. From an online intellectual property course I took with WIPO (translated from Spanish by me, so probably plagued by errors): How is a trademark registered? First of all, a registration request must be presented at the corresponding national or regional trademark office. The request must be filed together with a clear reproduction of the symbol(s) to be registered, indicating colors, shapes or 3D characteristics. The request must state also the list of products or services that the symbol is intended to be applied to (...) What reach does the trademark protection have? Practically all countries in the world register and protect trademarks. National and regional offices maintain a Trademark Registry where all the registration request's data are held, facilitating the examination, search and eventual opposition processes. Now, the effects for this registration are limited to the country (or in the case of the regional registration, countries) it deals with. In order to avoid the need of registering on each national or regional office, WIPO administers an international trademark registration system. This system is based on two treaties, the Madrid arrangement relative to the International Trademark Registration, and the Madrid Protocol. People with relation (due to nationality, residence or establishment) with a member State in one or both of those instruments can, on thebase of a request on this country's trademark office, obtain an international registration effective in all or some of the Madrid Union countries. The key is in the last lines: The procedure to obtain an international registration requires to reference the request for a national registration as a first step. I could not find it on my notes, but I am almost sure we were mentioned a minimum time for a trademark to exist nationally before it could be granted internationally. I still feel that this seems like a waste of project money (are many infringers in the US anyway?) and potentially a blank cheque ($3347 plus maintenance and costs of enforcement necessary to prevent it becoming generic), but I'd prefer those who are based and trading significantly with the debian logo in the US to make the decision. There is the precedent of the Linux trademark, which was obtained in 1997. For further details, please check: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/2559 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130612161941.gb34...@gwolf.org
