Simon Poole writes: > As you may have noticed we have removed all links displaying the Google > geocoding service from the wiki. These changes are a consequence of a > legal issue with respect to the trademark GEOCODE owned by Geocode, Inc. > of Alexandria, Virginia, USA.
WRONG, and FAIL. First, it's not your job to enforce somebody else's trademark. Since you didn't tell us, I can only speculate that the OSMF received a demand letter. If so, then SURELY the letter contains advice for the generic term for "geocode". If the letter did not contain such a term, then you should write back to the authors of the demand letter saying "Surely we have no intention of infringing your trademark, so please tell us what is the generic term for geocoding? This should be a term which uniquely identifies the service for which you claim "geocode" is a trademark for. Until you tell us this, we intend to take no action, but as a good faith measure, once you tell us, we will act as promptly as humanly possible to ensure that we do not infringe your trademark." The way trademarks work (and it surely seems that the OSMF is ignorant of this hence your actions) is that a trademark is an *adjective* modifying a *noun*. Thus, it is a Ford automobile, or an Apple computer. Ford is the adjective, automobile is the generic noun. Anybody is free to use the generic noun. (Or in the case of services, adverb/verb). Honestly, it's like you never talked to a lawyer about this. > If you find use of the term "geocode" on our wiki or help site > please replace it with a generic term (for example "search"), or > report it to my e-mail address. WRONG and FAIL. "search" is not the generic term for "geocode". The two actions are in no way related. A better term but still inadequate for the task is "translation", since the action translates from one addressing system into another. The generic term for "geocode" seems to be, without any further advice from the trademark holder, "geocode". I imagine that a generic term could be "geographical encoding", or "geocode" for short. Oh, oops, trademark infringing. How about "geographical translation"? Oh, oops, "GeoTran".com exists, so they probably think that "geographical translation" infringes their trademark. What IS the generic term that "geocode" trademarks??? Surely the trademark holder knows!!! The OSMF should ask them. > Both the use of the term "geocode" and the use of the Google API are > merely incidental to us. If the Google API contains a word claimed as a trademark, I would be happy to create a gateway which uses but does not make public the infringing trademark. You could link to that using a generic term like "geocode" or "geographical address translation", as you wish. > Please address any questions on the matter to me by e-mail CC'ed. -- --my blog is at http://blog.russnelson.com Crynwr supports open source software 521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315-600-8815 Potsdam, NY 13676-3213 | Sheepdog _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
