On Wed, 2006-05-31 at 07:51 +0930, Tom Cook wrote: > I am not a lawyer. If you want real legal advice go to a lawyer. > But... > > My understanding of the relevant law is this: You can establish a > trademark just by using it. There is no need to register it. > > If someone else starts using it once you have established it, you can > still sue them for infringement. > > If you register it and someone else starts using it, you still need to > sue them to make them stop. > > The catch is, it is much easier to sue them if you have registered it. > It means there is a presumption in your favour that the other side has > to rebut, whereas if you don't register it, then you have to prove > that it is established as a trademark.
Well, what a friend of mine (inventor of stuff that he might patent) does to help prove that he invented it at a certain date (well before registering a patent) is to print out a thorough description and mail it to himself. He uses fed-ex sealed bags and ships it to himself, ensuring that he uses a kind of shipping that requires the recipient (himself) to show ID before signing it out. When he recieves the package it is still sealed and has a date and tracking number stamped on it. He then puts the whole envelope in a safe storage box unopened. It will only be opened by a judge if it ever comes to that point. This way is pretty cheap and should provide substantial leverage in court, provided the package can be proved unopened and unaltered since the shipping date. The reason why he doesn't patent it is he wants to do more research beforehand to check out the market and also because once the patent is registered it will also expire at a set time from the registration. If he uses 1 year before getting to market with a product he might have lost a whole year in patent-time. In any case IANAL, just telling you about what he does to help his case. -HK _______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
