Hi Russ Thanks for the explanations. I think I got that. What most if us call absurd, is that (U.S.) patent offices let pass common names as trademarks when verifying the formal requirements. But what we're doing here is only plain guessing. So let's wait what the lawyer in charge recommends and what the OSMF then communicates.
-S. 2013/2/4 Russ Nelson <nel...@crynwr.com>: > Stefan Keller writes: > > Just for the curious of this ridiculous U.S. trademark thing: > > I found another company claiming GEOCODE as trademark: > > http://www.markhound.com/trademark/search/WbEfGtOgm > > And I'm wondering what these 65 services will do > > http://www.programmableweb.com/apitag/geocoding > > especially TomTom with it's geocode.com domain... > > Okay, quick explanation of the US trademark system, particularly since > it differs dramatically from the European system. > > In the U.S. *anybody* can claim that they have a trademark on > something, and they can bring that claim against an infringer to a > court of law, and present evidence in their favor of that claim, and > of course the supposed infringer can present evidence supporting > various theories that they aren't infringing. > > You can also, as an independent but related action, seek a > registration of your trademark. That puts people on notice that you > intend to defend your trademark in a court of law. It also serves as > some amount of evidence that you actually DO have a trademark because > you were the only party able to get a trademark in your field. > > However, the trademark status rests on the court case, not the > registration. Until that court case is brought, a registration isn't > worth the paper it's printed on. Until you're sued, you don't know > whether a trademark is valid or not. And ... if you don't have a > lawyer on staff, you'd better plan on not finding out if a trademark > is valid or not. > > -- > --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 _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
