[OSGeo-Board] FW: shirt logos

Wed Jul 26 12:28:58 PDT 2006

Hi all,

At a minimum, I would recommend using the (TM) symbol with OSGeo and The
Open Source Geospatial Foundation when you are using those terms in a
trademark sense to designate the community, projects and resources
provided by the organization.  I would also recommend using the (TM)
symbol with the logo.

By doing this, we help to establish common law trademark rights (at
least in those places where common law trademark rights are recognized).
The best protection would be to take the extra step and register the
trademarks.  I don't believe that is financially feasible to do around
the world and so would not recommend it.  A "next best" step would be to
register at least in the U.S. -- but as an organization you can
certainly decide that this extra step isn't worth it financially either.

Just to clarify what trademark rights protect: Trademark rights are
meant to distinguish the SOURCE of goods/services from other sources of
like goods/services.  I like to think of trademark rights as also
protecting the public -- they give the public confidence that it knows
the origin of the goods/services and can therefore trust the
integrity/value/quality etc.  In the case of this organization, this
means identifying the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (versus some
other organization) as the source of the community, projects and
resources that it provides -- and conversely giving the public
confidence that it can trust the integrity/value/quality etc. of the
community, projects and resources coming from the organization.  

The organization should also be "policing" how others use its
trademarks.  Policing can be forceful or gentle.  But you want others to
use the OSGeo, Open Source Geospatial Foundation names and logo
consistently and properly to designate the community, projects and
resources.  You can police your marks and at the same time give as many
people/organizations permission to use them as you are comfortable with
-- the key is to make sure that folks are using the marks consistently
and properly and in a manner that does not reflect poorly on your
organization.  The last thing you want is some other group to pop up
with shoddy projects and call themselves OSGeo.

This organization seems to care greatly about participating in
tradeshows, writing articles and interacting with other groups in this
space -- why bother if you aren't recognized for who you are?  And why
would other groups want your participation and contributions if they
don't come to recognize the integrity/value/quality etc. of what you
have to offer?

I had prepared some suggested trademark guidelines for the organization
some time back.  I am attaching these guidelines here -- they are in
draft form.  Once finalized, I would recommend that they be added to
OSGeo.org.  I'd probably create a link to them on the home page, right
next to the links for "Terms of Service" and "Privacy Policy".  I would
also recommend adding the following: "Open Source Geospatial Foundation,
OSGeo, and the OSGeo logo are trademarks of the Open Source Geospatial
Foundation in the United States and/or other countries worldwide."  This
should be added as a next sentence after our copyright notice on the
bottom of the home page.

This is my recommended advice -- for your consideration.

Best regards,
Jennifer Daehler

-----Original Message-----
From: Allan Doyle [mailto:adoyle at eogeo.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, July 26, 2006 9:01 AM
To: Michael P. Gerlek
Cc: Dave McIlhagga (External); Arnulf Christl; board at board.osgeo.org;
Jennifer Daehler; rich at richsteele.org
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Board] FW: shirt logos

On Jul 26, 2006, at 11:44, Michael P. Gerlek wrote:

> Just a point to consider:
>
> I think I'm partially responsible for bringing up this issue again,
> because a couple weeks ago an individual asked me if he could print  
> up a
> bunch of shirts with the OSGeo logo, specifically so that he could  
> sell
> them at a profit to make money for his local open source geo
> organization.
>
> I brought this to the board's attention because I was personally
> surprised by this move.  Prior to receiving that email, I would have
> claimed such a situation was only a theoretical worst-case.

So put up some guidelines on the web site. Any profits for the use of  
the logo should be shared in some percentage as a donation to OSGeo.

A (tm) won't stop hard core counterfeiters. People who are nice  
enough to ask are likely to be nice enough to pitch in.

	Allan

>
> -mpg
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Allan Doyle [mailto:adoyle at eogeo.org]
>> Sent: Wednesday, July 26, 2006 8:29 AM
>> To: Dave McIlhagga
>> Cc: Arnulf Christl; board at board.osgeo.org; Jennifer Daehler;
>> rich at richsteele.org; Michael P. Gerlek
>> Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Board] FW: shirt logos
>>
>> Since I'm somehow cc'ed on this again, I guess I get to comment :)
>>
>> I like Arnulf's analysis and am +1 on it. There are several places
>> where we can slide into corporate-think and completely lose
>> the OSGeo
>> bubble. If people are misusing our logo, our best defense is to make
>> sure everyone knows that their use is inappropriate. We don't
>> have to
>> sue them to do that. We have to make other kinds of noise.
>>
>> We're setting out to show that openness is the Way Forward. Does
>> Linus have a trademark on Linux? He does, in fact. Did that prevent
>> 193 other Linux-related registrations at the uspto.gov? No. See also
>> [1]...
>>
>> How about some others?
>>
>> OpenBSD - no
>> NetBSD - yes
>> FreeBSD - yes
>> Geoserver - yes (Not "ours", Owned by Raytheon...)
>> Geotools - yes (Not "ours", owned by Geotools Software Solutions)
>> Mapserver - no (was registered to two other companies in the past)
>> Mapbender - no
>> Apache - 152 registrations with "apache" in them.
>>
>> I don't see how it helps or hurts to have the TM or the
>> registration.
>> Sure, if we use the "TM" and later someone else registers it, we can
>> sue them, but it's not clear to me that there's a need.
>>
>> 	Allan
>>
>> [1] http://slashdot.org/articles/99/12/16/1248216.shtml
>>
>> On Jul 26, 2006, at 11:03, Dave McIlhagga wrote:
>>
>>> If by not doing our due diligence on this -- do we not risk third
>>> parties preventing us from our own freedom to use our own
>> logos and
>>> wording?
>>>
>>> Also - if OSGeo is being misrepresented by a third party - is that
>>> OK? Are we comfortable with allowing anybody to use OSGeo in any
>>> context they desire? By having adequate legal protection, we at
>>> least reserve the right to take action *if* a real problem should
>>> come up.
>>>
>>> I don't have the answers to these questions as I'm not a lawyer --
>>> but that's why I think taking legal opinion seriously on this is
>>> important.
>>>
>>> If Trademark registration gives us the freedom to behave in
>> the way
>>> we want to as an organization, is that not a good thing?
>>>
>>> Dave
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Arnulf Christl wrote:
>>>> On Tue, July 25, 2006 15:05, Dave McIlhagga wrote:
>>>>> Agreed with Frank - if we can get protection of "OSGeo"
>> and "Open
>>>>> Source
>>>>> Geospatial Foundation" - that would be sensible.
>>>>>
>>>>> Dave
>>>> Against whom or what do we need any protection? What kind of
>>>> protection
>>>> are we really going to get?
>>>> ...
>>>> Using the "TM" lets the world know that the organization
>> considers
>>>> its
>>>> marks to be proprietary
>>>> ...
>>>> Oh, funny that this word comes up here. :-) No the word is not
>>>> bad. But we
>>>> do not need a small letter to tell the world that we
>> really mean it.
>>>> ...
>>>> and allows the organization to start to develop some goodwill in
>>>> the marks.
>>>> ...
>>>> Bear with me doing some 'lost in translation yoga' on 'goodwill'.
>>>> Using
>>>> dict.leo.org it translates into 'Firmenwert' (company
>> value [comm.]),
>>>> 'Kulanz' (amiability, fairness, goodwill, kindness, obligingness,
>>>> fair
>>>> dealing [econ.]) or 'Wohlwollen' (benevolence, courtesy,
>>>> friendliness).
>>>> What kind of goodwill is protection by a tiny superior
>> letter (thats
>>>> something like a tiny virago) going to give us?
>>>> ...
>>>> Eventually, if OSGEO obtains a registration for its marks, then
>>>> you'll
>>>> switch to using an "(R)" in superscript.
>>>> ...
>>>> If you really want to know before switching - and as board
>> member and
>>>> voter you should very much feel obliged to - then read through
>>>> this page:
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registered_trademark
>>>> In my opinion there are way too many backlinks to copyright, legal
>>>> enforcement, commercial property ownership and licensing to make
>>>> me like
>>>> any of it in the context of OSGeo. We are not aiming at being yet
>>>> another
>>>> traditional company, we are a foundation.
>>>> ...
>>>> Very rough estimate of the fees to file one trademark in the U.S.
>>>> (including attorney time to prepare the application) are:
>> $1100-1500.
>>>> This is just to file the application. Occasionally with some
>>>> trademark
>>>> applications, you have problems with the trademark office
>>>> objecting to
>>>> the mark or a third party opposing the application. If
>> this happens,
>>>> additional fees will apply.  Based on what I've seen so
>> far, I don't
>>>> have any reason to believe that a third party would oppose
>> "OSGEO" or
>>>> the "OPEN SOURCE GEOPSPATIAL FOUNDATION" (our informal Google
>>>> searches
>>>> came up very clean) but that is difficult to know in advance.
>>>> ...
>>>> OK, so the registration valid for the US only would cost us 1500
>>>> bucks
>>>> (while we are shy of 300 to pay for lousy shirts...). To get some
>>>> real
>>>> 'protection' we'd need to register with more countries.
>> Real costs
>>>> only
>>>> start when someone somebody actually really starts bugging us by
>>>> stealing
>>>> logo or words. The 'protection' by registering the trademark does
>>>> not give
>>>> us anything beyond a theoretical right that has to be enforced by
>>>> someone
>>>> who will cost us the real money.
>>>> Even without any (R)s we have quite a fair chance of being
>> protected:
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
>>>> Registered_trademark#Enforcing_trademark_rights
>>>> Having said all this bear in mind that I am a bloody
>> layman. I am not
>>>> saying that anything that Jennifer Daehler said is not legally
>>>> completely
>>>> correct and makes all the sense from the perspective of a large and
>>>> well-fortified corporation. I am not saying either that it would
>>>> not be
>>>> perfectly legally correct to do it. It might even feel
>> like common
>>>> sense
>>>> to do it. I do question whether this kind of sense is what
>> we need to
>>>> protect OSGeo.org.
>>>> Therefore I vote -1 on TM or (C) or (R) superscript in the
>> logo or
>>>> on the
>>>> web page. If you like those superior letters then in Borgs name
>>>> put an
>>>> (O)pen there or a (F)ree or a (L)eft.
>>>> Best regards,
>>>> (still on vacation until 2006.08.04)
>>>>> Frank Warmerdam wrote:
>>>>>> Gary Lang wrote:
>>>>>>> Let's take up your suggestion.
>>>>>>> Board: do we want to do this?
>>>>>>> +1 from me
>>>>>> Folks,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'm +1 on using the (tm) with OSGeo.   If we have board support
>>>>>> on the
>>>>>> idea, I'll take it up with WebCom to update the web site
>> to use it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On the issue of registration: if the organization would
>> like to
>>>>>>> pursue
>>>>>>> it and funds permitting, my suggestion would be to
>> register the
>>>>>>> word
>>>>>>> mark "OSGEO" and (again, funds/desire permitting) the
>> word mark
>>>>>>> "OPEN
>>>>>>> SOURCE GEOSPATIAL FOUNDATION".  I'm less concerned about a logo
>>>>>>> registration, especially to the extent that OSGEO or OPEN SOURCE
>>>>>>> GEOSPATIAL FOUNDATION are an element of the logo -- I'd
>>>>>>> recommend just
>>>>>>> continuing to designate the logo with a "TM" in superscript.
>>>>>> My understanding was that "Open Source Geospatial Foundation" is
>>>>>> descriptive
>>>>>> and so would be difficult to protect as a trademark.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Best regards,
>>>>>
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> -
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
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>>
>> -- 
>> Allan Doyle
>> +1.781.433.2695
>> adoyle at eogeo.org
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: board-unsubscribe at board.osgeo.org
>> For additional commands, e-mail: board-help at board.osgeo.org
>>
>>

-- 
Allan Doyle
+1.781.433.2695
adoyle at eogeo.org

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