[Incubator] Re: [GRASS-PSC] Definition of a Project

[Arnulf Christl]

Frank Warmerdam wrote:
> Brad Douglas wrote:
>> On Sun, 2007-03-11 at 20:04 -0700, Michael Barton wrote:
>>> Out of curiosity, is there anything beyond open source etiquette to 
>>> prevent
>>> someone less well-intentioned from creating a new GIS (open source or
>>> commercial) and naming it GRASS II (or something like this) to 
>>> capitalize on
>>> GRASS's reputation?
>>
>> There is little to stop anyone from using a similar (or GRASS for that
>> matter) name.  All we have is prior use, which usually has little effect
>> on trademark law.
>>
>> IMO, GRASS should trademarked.  A trademark is not guarantee, either.
>> It must also be used properly to yield maximum legal protection.  This
>> information came from a discussion with a patent attorney.  It's a
>> little outside his field, so the information may not be 100% correct.
>> I'm not privy how this works internationally, either...only United
>> States law.
>>
>> What is OSGEO's position about copyright/trademark law?
>>
>> If deemed needed, I could file on behalf of GRASS in the US.  I could
>> absorb the $50 filing fee, but there is a larger fee (~$325 per
>> "classification") I cannot absorb when "classes" are granted.  This
>> generally grants a trademark for a period of 10 years.
> 
> Brad,
> 
> Note, legally registering a trademark can be somewhat onerous, but you
> can just assert a trademark ( (tm) instead of (R) ) and that carries quite
> a bit of weight from a legal point of view.  That is what we decided to
> do for "OSGeo".

Hi,
I checked this again and it does not say so in the official page:
https://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/legal/trademark_guidelines.html

and neither in the Wiki page which says "official now" in the comment 
and links to the official one (if you have a diff tool handy could you 
please check whether they still coincide):
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php?title=TrademarkGuidelines&oldid=8442

As I am the originator of this change I felt like pointing it out here. 
As far as I know we decided in a board meeting to not formally register 
our trademark and then accordingly never did:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Eighteenth_Board_Meeting#Discuss.2Fapprove_TrademarkGuidelines_proposed_by_VisCom

Last time that (tm) appeared was here:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php?title=TrademarkGuidelines&diff=next&oldid=8440

> If GRASS considers it important, we could look at (tm) issues, or even
> possibly registering the GRASS trademark.  But I'd hesitate before getting
> overly legalistic about this if there isn't really a compelling problem.
> 
> IMHO
> 
> Best regards,

The most interesting bit in this discussion is that this decision was 
taken by VisCom and not by incubation committee who seem to have 
interests in this topic too. If anybody feels the need to readdress this 
issue, go ahead.

Just to add the humor bit please turn to the discussion of this Wiki
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/TrademarkGuidelines
and do something about this request. I should now probably turn it into 
a Trac ticket for incubation...

Regards, Arnulf