[dokuwiki] Re: "doodle" is a trademark and shouldn't be used in plugins
- From: "Mike \"Pomax\" Kamermans" <pomax@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: dokuwiki@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2011 09:46:56 -0700
Hi Michael,
Okay, but in most cases you still aren't allowed to offer a
product/software that uses a trademark as name.
That depends on what you mean with "most cases". For registered
trademarks you are correct. For unregistered trademarks, things are not
so clear cut: anything relating to branding can be marked a trademark by
using ™ (be that the product's name, slogan, or even graphical logos and
styling, such as 7-11's horrid colour scheme), but unless you have the
trademark vetted (by registering it with the trademark office) anyone is
allowed to use it as long as they can prove that whatever you
trademarked was in use before you claimed ownership.
In this case, if someone else used the term "doodle" while publically
referring to scheduling meetings before Doodle set up shop (via blog
posts, newspaper articles, IRC chats, what have you), then the trademark
claim is void. However, once it's a registered trademark, with ™ being
replaced by ®, the branding is considered authoritative. Prior art
arguments no longer hold, and the trademark can be enforced.
Stating that you can't use the trademark in a TOS is actually a very
different thing, and has nothing to do with the fact that the term is
trademarked. Depending on where you live, TOS may in fact not be binding
in the slightest, because the law only recognises contracts, and
treating a TOS as contract requires that it passes the requirements for
legal contracts. So while it's usually a good idea to follow the TOS, it
can't forbid you to use a trademarked word. Although Doodle is certainly
within its right to cancel your subscription if you do =)
As for the Don's "I hope that they are not claiming rights over the
piece of paper that is on my desk", that's not how trademarks work =)
Trademarks only apply to branding in specific ways. In this case,
"Doodle" is a trademark for an online scheduling service. You could
start an online collaborative drawing service and call it Doodle, and
the while people who run Doodle won't like it, they won't be able to
claim trademark infringement, because you're in a different trade
(domain disputes based on similarity will be a different matter, of course).
Of course the most important lesson in this thread is the fact that the
initial question should have been "Possible trademark infringement; was
permission given to use the term doodle for the doodle plugin?" =) The
concern was of course reasonable: no one would think to call these
things doodles, unless they've actually used doodle.com or know that
people use it can thus know that they can even refer to these things as
doodles; but, permission was given, so there is no problem (nor will
there be, as permission cannot be retracted unless it was given with the
stipulation that it was only for 1, 2, 3, ... weeks, months, years, what
have you).
- Mike "Pomax" Kamermans
nihongoresources.com
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