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On 02/08/13 12:22, Martijn Grooten wrote:
On Fri, 2 Aug 2013, Paul Sutton wrote:Just think how much money could be spent on R&D if they stopped all this trademark of every day words, not to mention the billions spent on software patent litigation. I am saying billions as there does seem to be a lot of money involved in all this.Patents are a right mess and a waste of time and resources, most people will agree with you on that.But trademarks are another thing. I think the fact that trademarks exist makes sense and I am not aware of a huge money-wasting industry behind them - although I'm sure there's the odd lawsuit merely filed because someone things they can make the sued company pay a lot of money, if only in a settlement.From Wikipedia:"Infringement may occur when one party, the "infringer", uses a trademark which is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark owned by another party, in relation to products or services which are identical or similar to the products or services which the registration covers."Note the "idential or similar to the products". There's a thing call Ubuntu Cola: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_ColaIt is unrelated to the Operating System and produces a completely unrelated product, under a different philosphy. So there's no problem. But if you set up a software company called Ubuntu, you'll likely run into legal trouble.Martijn.
Cola is a generic term - a bit like juice. Tom te tom te tom -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq