[openbeos] Re: Name suggestion
- From: John Tegen <john.tegen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "'openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'" <openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2002 10:47:39 -0700
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...
Other related posts:
