Syed Zaeem Hosain wrote: > I *entirely* agree with the public use of trademark and logo > attributions - the specific method, design, figure, wording, etc., is > driven by the company who owns them. These are often described in > *public* documents by those companies (see Oracle, Google and Microsoft > web sites for examples). > > However, licensing a patent from a third-party and incorporating that > intellectual property in your own product is quite different. > Documentation should not generally require specific attribution. > Indeed, that business agreement may be one that needs to be relatively > confidential. > > So, I would suggest that it is sufficient to say "... are protected by > patents: XXX, XXX, XXX" that _includes_ the licensed patent and leave > it at that. > > Most importantly, ask your *own* lawyers (internal or otherwise) for > the specific policy that they may already have ...
That's probably often the case. IIRC, when Sun owned Java, all we had to do is acknowledge the trademark. But then Oracle acquired Sun, and their policies are very different (in a number of ways). Since users of our software are also using the Java software we license from Oracle, our customers must be presented with and accept the Oracle license terms. Of course, that's software, so it's not really a patent issue, but a license-to-use issue -- I don't know what's being licensed in Alison's case, and the situation may be quite different. And it's Oracle -- 'nuff said. Bottom line: What you're legally obligated to do should be specified in the contract with the license owner. Richard G. Combs Senior Technical Writer Polycom, Inc. richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom 303-223-5111 ------ rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom 303-903-6372 ------
