Hi Brian, Just to make sure: you are talking not about swirl alone, but rather about swirl + word Debian. Is that correct?
On Mon, 22 Apr 2013, Brian Gupta wrote: > Hi all, > I have been helping to field trademark inquiries for Debian since late > February, and the issue of our Logo has come up a number of times. > Currently, our logo is not a registered Trademark, but is considered > (and treated by our current Trademark policy) as a "common law" > trademark, in that we have been using it to represent Debian for many > years, and many people see it and recognize it as "Debian's logo". > I know there have been discussions in the past about moving forward > with officially registering the logo, but these discussions seem to > have not ended with a clear decision or agreement one way or another, > hence the status quo of unregistered common law trademark. > Generally speaking, as a matter of law, it would be better if we > registered our logo as our Trademark. We had also gotten advice from > our legal counsel (SFLC) encouraging us to do so. > I don't believe any changes would be required to our Trademark policy > to accomodate the change from "common law" to "registered" trademark, > we'd just have the benefit that we'd have an easier time protecting > it, if we ever found a need to do so. > Here is the Debian Trademark Policy 2.0 [1] guidance on using logos: > "Guidelines for Using Logos > - Any scaling must retain the original proportions of the logo. > - Do not use the Debian logos as part of your company logo or product > logo or branding itself. They can be used as part of a page describing > your products or services. > - You need not ask us for permission to use logos on your own website > solely as a hyperlink to the Debian project website." > Some may wonder if Registering our logo as a trademark is possible > with the logo under a fairly liberal Free Software license. The answer > is yes, as Copyrights are a different set of rights than Trademark. > Bear in mind or Logo is already one of our Trademarks, we just don't > have it registered. > Another question that one might raise is, "What if the USPTO rejects > our logo as too simple, and not creative enough?" In answer, this is > not a criteria for acceptance. If the mark is distinctive, and unique, > and isn't already registered, it doesn't really matter how simple or > complex a design is. e.g. - Think of the "Nike Swoosh". > I would like to work to address what I perceive to be a bug, and get > our logo official registered. I spoke to leader@ (Lucas) about this, > and he said that I should first start a dicussion on -project laying > out the pros and cons, with examples of what other similar projects > are doing. > Pros: > ----- > - Makes it easier, legally speaking, to protect our trademark, if it > ever came to it > - When companies are doing trademark searches for logos in the > trademark database, they would be discouraged from using our logo, as > it is would be in the database. > - If a company tries to register a logo trademark that is the same as > ours, the USPTO should not allow it, since it is in their database. (I > say should, as mistakes can happen) > Cons: > ----- > - Filing costs of ~$700 > - Labor/work required to file (With assistance from SFLC, I am willing > to do much of the work required.) > - Required extra coordination with SPI > - If someone has already filed our logo as a trademark, we will be > forced into a situation where we need to deal with that. (I have > already done a preliminary search of the USPTO database, and found no > such occurrences, so feel this risk is minimal.) > - In order to maintain the status of a federally registered trademark, > the owner must file a statement of continued use and later, a renewal > application. (Again more work, which I am willing to do.) > Other projects that have registered their logo: > ----------------------------------------------- > - Apache - Many trademarks, including the feather > http://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/list/ > - OpenOffice - Seagull logo > http://www.openoffice.org/marketing/art/galleries/logos/ > - Gentoo Linux - G logo http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/name-logo.xml > - Fedora - Multiple logos http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Logo/UsageGuidelines > - Drupal CMS - Druplicon logo http://drupal.org/node/9068 > http://drupal.com/trademark > - Gnome - Gnome Foot http://www.gnome.org/foundation/legal-and-trademarks/ > - Mozilla - Multiple logos (Firefox, Thunderbird and Mozilla) > http://blog.mozilla.org/press/media-library/ > - KDE - KDE and the K Desktop Environment logos > http://techbase.kde.org/Template:KDE_Trademark_Notice > So far in my search of other large Free Software Projects that have a > singular graphical identify, pretty much all have a registered > graphical trademark, with the exception of the GNU project's "gnuhead" > logo. (However, FSF does still treat it as a trademark > http://www.gnu.org/graphics/agnuhead.html) > What do people feel about proceeding with this registration? > Thanks, > Brian > [1] - http://www.debian.org/trademark -- Yaroslav O. Halchenko, Ph.D. http://neuro.debian.net http://www.pymvpa.org http://www.fail2ban.org Senior Research Associate, Psychological and Brain Sciences Dept. Dartmouth College, 419 Moore Hall, Hinman Box 6207, Hanover, NH 03755 Phone: +1 (603) 646-9834 Fax: +1 (603) 646-1419 WWW: http://www.linkedin.com/in/yarik -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected] Archive: http://lists.debian.org/[email protected]
