[openbeos] Re: Name suggestion

Yes (asking Palm), and the lawyer representing Lindows is a friend of my
family, plus I just finished a law class on this topic.

John

-----Original Message-----
From: Elver Loho [mailto:elver.loho@xxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, June 27, 2002 2:00 PM
To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [openbeos] Re: Name suggestion


Has anyone ever actually ASKED Palm what they think about OpenBeOS or 
are these your own opinions?


Elver

>Two items regarding trademarks and lawsuits.  MS attempted to sue 
Lindows on
>one basis that it might be confusing to the consumer in the 
marketplace.  A
>company does have a right to protect their branding if someone else 
tries to
>leverage that branding for their own gain.  If OBOS or what ever name 
they
>choose, tries to leverage the branding of Be or the BeOS, the owners 
of that
>trademark can request directly or through the courts to stop the other
>company from leveraging that brand.  Additionally, "BeOS" is a 
trademark now
>owned by Palm (or is it Be again?).  Unauthorized use of someone else
>trademark or mis-representing that trademark is a violation.
>
>If a suit occurred, does OBOS have a chance of winning; maybe.  But as 
far
>as I know, no-one on the OBOS team has enough money to defend itself 
in
>court, nor would anyone want to have their personal assets attached if 
Palm
>could prove damages.  It's just something you don't want to test 
unless you
>have limited liability protection (incorporated in some form), and 
have deep
>pockets (both Lindows have).
>
>John
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: pascal@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:pascal@xxxxxxxxxx]
>Sent: Wednesday, June 26, 2002 9:09 PM
>To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [openbeos] Re: Name suggestion
>
>
>On Wed, 26 June 2002, "Michael Phipps" wrote
>
>> 
>> There is something of a stigma of failure. And if that
>>were the only issue, I would say that it pretty well
>>balances with the positive side (i.e. popularity, etc).
>>The issue is legal. Cloning BeOS and naming ourselves.
>>*Be.* is a recipie for a lawsuit.
>
>Might be. I don't know. But on the other hand, if we
>refer to the case that rejected Microsoft's claim
>against "lindows", we can say for the same
>reasons that Be is a generic name and cannot be
>registered.
>So, I'm not a specialist, but I guess a name is unlikely
>to be the target of a lawsuit just because it contains
>"be".
>
>Read the ruling, it's interesting.
>
>Among the reasons for the claim rejection:
>- (said above) Windows is a generic name;
>- Window as a programming concept was known before MS
>  started using it in '83;
>- There are myriads of product names containing *dows,
>  and MS didn't file any claim against one of them.
>- MS does not sale any product called simply Windows,
>  but only Microsoft Windows and its variants.
>
>On top of that, I wonder if filing against a non
>commercial organization can be done easily.
>
>By the way, if we cannot use a name containing be, what
>about the library libbe.so?
>
>Pascal
>Note that I am not in favor and neither against using
>a name in *be*. I am only against "religious" decisions
>without careful study, like (for the most famous that
>have shown on this list):
>- No C++ in the holy kernel;
>- No localization of the holy kernel;
>- etc...
>

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