About a couple weeks ago after Rockbox appeared in one the online mags (pc-mag?) I suspected that this would start happening if rb "mattered too much". Now it's for real!
Has this sort of thing occurred before? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Björn Stenberg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <rockbox-dev@cool.haxx.se> Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2006 5:23 PM Subject: Tetrox renamed to Rockblox, for trademark reasons > Hi all. > > We received a "Cease and Desist" letter from a law firm representing The Tetris Company, which holds the trademark "TETRIS". They claim our "Tetrox" plugin infringes on their trademark "Tetris" and demand we remove it. > > After consulting US and Swedish lawyers, I have decided to abide them by renaming Tetrox to "Rockblox". Old members will remember this was the name of the plugin that Tetrox replaced. > > The issue here is that trademark law is what I call a "soft" law. We do not use the word that they have registered, and yet a judge may still find us infringing. They reason is that a word/mark is deemed infringing if there is "likelyhood of confusion". That likelyhood can only be decided by a court, and going to court in the US costs a truckload of money even if you win. In short: It's not worth it. > > In addition to the trademark claim, they also claim copyright on "features" of the game. However, the lawyers agree with me that those claims are nonsense so we can safely ignore them. > > -- > Björn
