Well, it's legal stuff. There are no definitive answers here. However, trademark law is intended to stop companies from using the name of another company misleadingly, i.e. to protect from these two situations:
A. A company naming itself very similar to another company with a better brand to fake out customers who might erroneously think they are dealing with the presumably more famous / better branded company. B. A company doing something or selling something bad under a name that is equal to / similar to a competitor, to make them look bad. A negative ad doesn't fall under trademark law because while customers may be getting hoodwinked, the ad does not try to fake out brand names. Writing code where code atoms themselves are trademarked names would therefore be safe. Same goes for the java extension. The usual applies though: I'm not a lawyer, and even if the law is clear, someone can sue you anyway, and in certain countries, you get royally screwed regardless unless you have a big war chest due to easily impressed judges and a legal system that doesn't punish frivolous lawsuits. (read: The U.S.A.). For example, a lawyer could make the case that 'java' as a brand is strongly associated with Oracle, and distributing source code, with all those .java files, thus creates the false impression that Oracle wrote it. This is a ridiculous argument but try to defend yourself against the entire Oracle legal department making it work. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
