That's actually very interesting imo. I was going through the Gnu gpl but I
can't figure out if it has anything to do with registered trademarks.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Björn Stenberg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Newsgroups: gmane.comp.systems.archos.rockbox.devel
Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2006 11:23 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
