Chris Thompson wrote:
>
> On Mon, Nov 01, 1999 at 04:42:50PM -0400, Neil Kandalgaonkar wrote:
> > Joshua Chamas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > That said, they do allow non-profits and others to use the camel, e.g. the
> > Perl Mongers. It's not evil, they're just trying to protect a trademark
> > which they built. AFAIK no one associated a camel w/perl before the ORA
> > books.
>
> There's a slightly different reason that you are all missing. It's not
> that they WANT to defend their trademark, it's that they HAVE to defend
> their trademark, or they lose it. As I recall under US trademark law, if I
> can prove that you knew of a use of your trademark and did nothing, The
> courts can say that you werent defending it, and take it away.
>
[cut]
>
> Just goes to show, in the US if you dont vigorously defend your rights to
> any registered or implicit trademark, you can lose it.
>
Trademark law is probably designed to avoid the very kind of situation
that is going on with Unisys and GIFs. Unfortunately, that's a
*patent*.
