Michael Poole wrote: > Trademark law's purpose is not to encourage or reward the commercial > use of new marks, but to stem certain kinds of pernicious consumer > confusion. As it is not simply a question of owning and controlling > rights (for a limited period), it is incorrect to continually treat > trademark law like those others in hope that you will convince us > otherwise.
It doesn't matter how or why you programmed it that way, you just can't make Iceweasel install itself when a user types "apt-get install firefox". And that's exactly what this package does. The use of 'firefox' in the apt-get is a reference to a specific product. That's where trademarks come in. People think this package will install the Firefox(TM) browser but instead they get another browser. That's confusion. The *only* thing you can safely do is have the apt-get result in a message like "Firefox is not available, try Iceweasel instead". And yes, if the user then manually does "apt-get install iceweasel" he gets the very same result. But under trademark law, there's a big difference: no confusion because the user now asked for and got Iceweasel. It doesn't matter that it's to "ease upgrading". It doesn't matter that the word 'firefox' is a parameter to apt-get or refers to a file of the same name. All that matters is that installing this package with the name 'firefox' gives you an installation of the Iceweasel browser. Arnoud -- Arnoud Engelfriet, Dutch & European patent attorney - Speaking only for myself Patents, copyright and IPR explained for techies: http://www.iusmentis.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
