Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 14:36:15 -0800 From: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au> To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> Cc: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>, A Joseph Koshy <koshy@india.hp.com>, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: General policy on trademark violations Message-ID: <199802122236.OAA04410@dingo.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 13 Feb 1998 08:54:36 %2B1030." <19980213085436.13673@freebie.lemis.com>
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> On Thu, 12 February 1998 at 13:54:15 -0800, Mike Smith wrote: > > > >> Q2: What about programs, files and directories in the source tree that > >> "violate trademarks" in other countries like India, Japan, and Russia? > >> Will the FreeBSD project be willing be rip out parts of its source > >> base to satisfy litigants from other countries? > > > > It's not a question of "being willing", and this is, I think, where > > people are missing the point. > > > > If the FreeBSD project is faced with litigative action over a trademark > > infringement, what courses of action are available? > > > > - Fight it in court. This is only an option if a donor with a few > > million spare to spend on a hopeless case turns up. Trademark > > litigation is rarely started against small parties without some > > expectation of success. > > The expectation of success might be that somebody in the small party > assesses the chances of their success (based on their financial > ability) as small, and comes to the conclusion: Are you actually familiar with the basic principles behind trademark law? Did you read all the way through this thread last time 'round? There was a particularly interesting post which gave the trademark classification groupings of interest here, along with input from a number of people that have clearly been involved in this sort of thing before. A trademark litigation profiteer is not going to propose or commence action without expectations of success. That would be bad business. > >> Q3: Are the sources for the "extracted" parts available as a package > >> from anywhere else in the world? > > > > Obviously, no. > > It's not that obvious. After the USL decision, FreeBSD and BSDI had > to stop distributing Net/2. Two year later, Dr. Dobbs did a CD-ROM > with the stuff on it. Separate incidents. > So what's this all about? Hasbro and Boggle. If they were really tenacious, they could probably claim look-and-feel as well. How long since *you* played Boggle(tm) on your system? -- \\ Sometimes you're ahead, \\ Mike Smith \\ sometimes you're behind. \\ mike@smith.net.au \\ The race is long, and in the \\ msmith@freebsd.org \\ end it's only with yourself. \\ msmith@cdrom.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe hackers" in the body of the message
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