Re: Tetrox renamed to Rockblox, for trademark reasons
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
Re: Tetrox renamed to Rockblox, for trademark reasons
Michael Sevakis said: I wasn't speaking of the World Wrestling Federation :) but re: Rockbox. As I understand the same names can be used if not to indicate the same thing, at least in the US. Dumb example: Foo Meat Packing, Inc. and Foo Manufacturing, Inc. aren't nescessarily in conflict. Apple and Apple are prime examples of how this works in the real world. Apple records sold records, and Apple corp made computers and software. However in the modern global multimedia market, both are treading on each other's toes quite a lot in terms of market areas, and they both seem to continue without problem. -- Mike Holden http://www.by-ang.com - the place to shop for all manner of hand crafted items, including Greetings Cards, Jewellery and Gifts
Re: Tetrox renamed to Rockblox, for trademark reasons
On Wed, 20 Sep 2006, Mike Holden wrote: Apple and Apple are prime examples of how this works in the real world. Apple records sold records, and Apple corp made computers and software. However in the modern global multimedia market, both are treading on each other's toes quite a lot in terms of market areas, and they both seem to continue without problem. You mean apart from the fact that Apple Records sued Apple Computers for several million dollars and lost? ;-) According to news articles a few months back, they had a deal that Apple Records thought Apple Computers broke when they entered the music business with iTunes and iPod. Regarding trademarks on the name Rockbox, the german site rockbox-lounge.com has got a CD-letter from a german company which seems to own the German trademarks for Rock Box and Rock-box. -- Daniel Stenberg -- http://www.rockbox.org/ -- http://daniel.haxx.se/
Re: Tetrox renamed to Rockblox, for trademark reasons
Oh well, I preferred the name Rockblox anyway :)It is a worry though, these increasing claims - how long will it be before one of the many users of the word Rockbox (or similar) come after us - or do we have some kind of immunity on that one?
RE: Tetrox renamed to Rockblox, for trademark reasons
I'm pretty sure that the RB team could prove precedence through first usage (all it'd take is a quick few Internet Archive searches and a choice few Google searches to cull relevant statistical information as to when the name 'Rockbox' was first used)... ... I like Rockblox better than Tetrox too, it's way catchier. :D From: Will Robertson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 20 September 2006 00:38To: Rockbox developmentSubject: Re: Tetrox renamed to Rockblox, for trademark reasons Oh well, I preferred the name Rockblox anyway :)It is a worry though, these increasing claims - how long will it be before one of the many users of the word "Rockbox" (or similar) come after us - or do we have some kind of immunity on that one?
Re: Tetrox renamed to Rockblox, for trademark reasons
On 20/09/06, Christopher Woods [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm pretty sure that the RB team could prove precedence through first usage (all it'd take is a quick few Internet Archive searches and a choice few Google searches to cull relevant statistical information as to when the name 'Rockbox' was first used)... ... I like Rockblox better than Tetrox too, it's way catchier. :D From: Will Robertson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 20 September 2006 00:38 To: Rockbox development Subject: Re: Tetrox renamed to Rockblox, for trademark reasons Oh well, I preferred the name Rockblox anyway :) It is a worry though, these increasing claims - how long will it be before one of the many users of the word Rockbox (or similar) come after us - or do we have some kind of immunity on that one? and that is why top posting sux!
Re: Tetrox renamed to Rockblox, for trademark reasons
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
RE: Tetrox renamed to Rockblox, for trademark reasons
Michael Sevakis said: 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? See WWF (renaming of, copyright infringement)... Looks like the only outfit with any prior claim would be The Rock Box, a British chain of music stores (since 1987). They've had an online presence as rockbox.co.uk for as long as I've known... --technogeek
RE: Tetrox renamed to Rockblox, for trademark reasons
Michael Sevakis said: I wasn't speaking of the World Wrestling Federation :) but re: Rockbox. As I understand the same names can be used if not to indicate the same thing, at least in the US. Dumb example: Foo Meat Packing, Inc. and Foo Manufacturing, Inc. aren't nescessarily in conflict. Michael Sevakis said: 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? See WWF (renaming of, copyright infringement)... Looks like the only outfit with any prior claim would be The Rock Box, a British chain of music stores (since 1987). They've had an online presence as rockbox.co.uk for as long as I've known... Yah, that's actually what I meant - you can't get much different than World Wrestling Federation and World Wildlife Fund, but there you go - World Wildlife Fund successfully sued the other WWF and now they are WWE... I guess what I was getting at is you never know till you get the CD letter, then you do what makes sense :-). I don't think Rockbox is particularly in trouble - it's well known, and any action would have occured by now, I'd think. --technogeek
