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SGI Versus "Open*" and All Things "GL"?
DooMWiz asks: "I am the author of the Open Image Library (OpenIL), an image library under the LGPL license at openil.org. Several weeks ago, I was shocked by the appearance of an e-mail from a Silicon Graphics, Inc representative. Apparently, they are "concerned" that 'OpenIL' may infringe on their 'OpenGL' trademark. I am not a trademark lawyer, nor do I have any real knowledge of trademarks. Even if I had some kind of justifiable way of proving that 'OpenIL' could not possibly be confused with 'OpenGL', I probably would not pursue it, since a college student with very limited resources against giant SGI would be messy for me. I'm really not *too* upset about being asked to change the name, but during the course of this, I sent several e-mails to the SGI rep, and his replies indicated some disturbing news. He claims that he has already talked to OpenCL about changing their name and that he plans to pursue the ever-popular OpenAL, which isn't just a one man operation like OpenIL. OpenAL may have the resources to fight something like this, since it has nothing to do with SGI's business model but is backed by large companies. Lastly, SGI has a trademark on 'GL', and the rep also claims to plan to pursue projects with 'GL' in their names. Projects like GLScene and DemoGL come to mind and may be in trouble. Anyone with trademark experience have any advice on what course of action to take? Dropping the 'OpenIL' name seems like the easiest way out."
Actually, yet. I do believe that the CEO, Chief Engineer, Software Engineer, Hardware Engineer, and Sanitation Engineer care whether or not some joe blow starts up a project with the name Open or GL in it. Especially if that project is exceptionally sucky or exceptionally wonderful. If SGI allows projects with like names, they risk becoming associated with those like-named projects. Or, even worse, SGIs products could become associated with the like-named projects. SGI wants you to know that if you are using an OpenGL application, you're using SGI technology. They also want you to know that OpenAL has nothing to do with SGI. Because it is fairly widely known that SGI designed OpenGL, many will assume that anything named similarly must also be made by SGI. I know that I did the first time that I heard of OpenAL.
SGI is fighting over Brand recognition. They wouldn't have had this problem if they had continuously marketed their products as "SGI OpenGL" or "SGI OpenMP". That would ensure that their name is tied with the product at all times.
Look at what happened to Bayer with Asprin. No, Asprin isn't the name of the drug. It was a product name that Bayer used. Over time, though, people forgot that Asprin was made by Bayer, and so refered to all asprin-like products as Asprin. Yeah, it's a little different, but many of the concepts are the same. The tech industry isn't imune from it. For years people would say "I've got an IBM computer" or "I've got an Apple computer" when what they really meant was "I've got a TDK IBM compatible computer" or "I've got a Laser Apple compatible computer.
something clever
They are?
It sure seems like only OpenIL out of those could be easily confused with OpenGL...
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"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." --H.L. Mencken
These companies really need to reign in their IP lawyers before they do permanent damage to their reputation.
I mean, do you really think the CEO or Chief Engineer of SGI gives a shit if some uses Open or GL in the name of their project? Especially if it's free? But these lawyers don't have to listen to them if it's a public company... all they have to do is play on the fears of the stockholders and the executives are powerless to stop them.
No, of course not. Simple words are not trademarkable, all else being equal (the truth is more complicated), and they can't start suing people who simply use the word "smile" in a novel.
What they've trademarked is the word smile in that font, color, size, and position. You can't pluck that particular graphic (which happens to spell "smile" in English) and use it for your own restaurant, or other purposes, because that particular graphic is trademarked by McDonalds.
Within reason, you could create another graphic with the word "smile" in it in a different font and color and trademark that for yourself. "Within reason" here means that it can't be too similar.
This applies directly to the topic at hand, in fact. OpenGL(tm) as a trademark is limited and people know what it is. Does Open?L infringe? Frankly, if I had to guess, the answer would be an emphatic Yes! Only one letter of difference, and both are graphics libraries? That's just asking for it. My direct answer to this ask Slashdot, bearing in mind that IANAL, is yes, you are legitimately in violation of the SGI trademark, it is quite conceivable that people could confuse OpenGL and Open[ICA]L, esp. as all are graphics libraries, and you should not fight this, because you will quite legitimately lose.
On the other hand, assaulting everybody with "Open" and "GL" is another story. SGI should really only be seen as having "Open" in the context of "OpenGL" and "GL" in the context of "OpenGL". Using on piece or another, especially as both terms seperately are quite generic in nature, should not be enough. "GLScene" and "DemoGL" are far more tenuous claims. In fact, the use of "GL" in this context is so widespread that the argument could probably be made that this has "passed" into common usage... which assumes that it ever did belong exclusively to SGI which I have to doubt.
I think the OPENiL people should be able to keep the name, but they should have:
1) Avoided the use of an oval logo (similar to openGL)
2) Not even talk about open GL which they do in the about page.
If you are familiar with OpenGL, you basically already know how to use OpenIL. Here is a sample code snippet that uses OpenIL:
So basically the command structure is the same the name is similar and you didn't expect SGI to notice?
"ImageVision Library (IL) is a toolkit for creating, processing and displaying images on all SGI visual workstations. The library provides image processing application developers with a complete, robust framework for manipulating and managing images."
I'll bet it's this connection that is the source of concern at SGI.
Did anyone complain about people purchasing land cheaply?
Native Americans?
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E_NOSIG
sgi also holds the trademark on OpenML, and is one of several companies involved in something called the Khronos Group which is pushing OpenML as a standard digital media api. This may explain some of the reasoning behind their attempt to change any other Open[A-Z]L.
Hmmmm, I wounder if they sent a similar letter to the holders of the StarTrek trademark. :)
Later,
Thad
The Bolachek Journals
So, lemme see if I get this right:
domain squatter: an individual with an idea to make money = BAD
domain broker: an 'organization' that can provide you with a domain name, matching phone number, and legal advice on how to maintain your trademark = GOOD?!?
BTW: what exactly is the difference between selling domain names and selling real-estate?
Did anyone complain about people purchasing land cheaply?
Well, the new McMile comes in all sorts of flavors and sizes! And, You can have it my way! (You can't have it your way. That'd be Burger Kling.)
Double-McMiles and ArchMcMiles will be the first variants introduced. Double-McMiles are the equivalent of two McMiles placed back to back, and consequently will use two trademark symbols. ArchMcMiles are McMile arc lengths. You can multiply ArchMcMiles by McRadii to find a McAnswer in McMiles.
*60's pop song starts playing, "Oh Baby, I love to taste your juices in my mouth", Monologue dubbed overtop: "The Big King^H^H^H^H Mac will see you now."*
Our McFries can be ordered in McMediums, McLarge, and McSuperSizes and optionally can be topped with McSalt and McCatsup.
(Under the DMCA, Sodium Chloride will no longer be available for use in High School Laboratory experiments or as general kitchen/restaurant supplies. All Sodium Chloride must be ordered from McDonald's, Inc., and may only be distributed in miniscule packets. Additionally, Sodium and Chloride are pending removal from the Periodic Table of Elements.)
Remember, McWater can be ordered with any food for no additional fee! However, you *must* buy something in order to drink McWater or use a McRestroom. (All public and private restrooms in any country must be licensed from McDonald's, Inc., and Oxygen Dihydride may not be dispensed, distributed, sold, or consumed outside of a McDonald's restaurant.)
In addition, McDonald's is proud to announce its merger with Microsoft!
We will soon be bringing you McWindows, in a variety of sizes: McCE, McME, and McNT, abbreviated as McCEMENT. After the pending merger with Laurie (Supersoaker), McXP will also be available. At this time, there is no plan for Laurie and Burger Kling to merge as previously announced.
McDonald's will also be suing Apple Computer for their infringment of our trademark, Big Mac OS-X, our new operating system designed for the World Wide McWeb.
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
If you don't rigorously enforce/protect your trademarks every time there's a possible infringement, the trademarks themselves can and will be wiped out.
This is very different from patent law, where a patent may be left idle. The patent holder can selectively choose to defend, license or ignore those who are possibly infringing. (It is for this reason that I am not against patents themselves, but against those patent bullies who find new revenue sources in the courtroom.)
"If you don't agree with the law, fix it." Explore the ways that trademark law can be fixed, and contact your local government official.
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The other two (OpenCL and AL) look a bit more dubious.
Thanks for the support (I'm the guy who wrote OpenCL and then was promptly contacted by SGI). The phrase the guy who contacted me used was "clearing out the namespace" for their products. I find it pretty ridiculous, you would have to be a real moron to confuse a C++ crypto library and a C graphics API.
I told them I would change it, mostly because I wasn't really in the mood to mess with even a small company. OTOH, I haven't changed my source tree yet, as I was waiting to see what would happen when the news eventually hit the community.
Trademarks are one of those forever troublesome topics. Fundamentally, trademark owners have the exclusive right to use it, and often to use it on related products. They also have a duty to defend the trademark from unauthorized use, lest they lose the trademark. The intent of the laws centers around creating a name the manufacturer owns, and cutting confusion in the mind of consumers.h tml>Cornell's</a>.
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This begs the question: "What's confusing to a random mass of consumers?" Because the only way to determine for sure is to go to court and to take your chances, trademark law has lots of 'nasty-grams' asking people to change names.
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It's a bit of a problem. Lawyers, generally, are comfortable with settling ambiguities and issues of fact with court proceedings. Non-lawyers feel this is arbitrary and encourages kleptocracy. The attitude appears to be a hazard of the profession, just like developers want to add a little more to the next release.
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We always have trademark law issues show up on Slashdot. Remember Sun Microsystems sending out mass emails to every website with the substring "java" in their names? Or all the fights over ICANN arbitration rules concerning trademarks? Or trying to retake the term "Open Source" as a trademark or servicemark? Because trademarks deal with fuzzy issues like "confusion", there will always be confusion.
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Look a good primer on trademarks, e.g., <a href=http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/trademark.
Also, a shameless plug: Check out <a href=http://www.truegift.com>TrueGift Donations</a> to help students turn into smarter people.
Profit motivates invention.
That's the problem right there. When you start being concerned that people are making money too easily, or unfairly (though it's hard to find a victim in cybersquatting "crimes", IMO), anything you do in the way of prevention is going to have the effect of limiting freedom, which will have an adverse affect on everyone given enough time.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
While I'm not overjoyed to see that the company I work for is going and doing one of these stupid trademark enforcement deals, this particular one seems a little more on target than some. Afterall, "OpenGL" and "OpenIL" are fairly similar names and they *are* both image manipulation libraries. A little bit of a stretch, but not as bad as, say, etoy. The other two (OpenCL and AL) look a bit more dubious.
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
It's hard to understand why SGI is doing this. OpenGL is really suffering these days from the more maturing D3D api, and this will not do any good to the reputation of OpenGL. Projects like DemoGL, GLUT, DelphiGL and others are started because it's necessary to have a platform that makes it easy to develop OpenGL based effects, thus HELPS in supporting the development of OpenGL. If SGI is pushing these projects to change their names, it's very likely that they will abandon OpenGL at all.
For me, if SGI wants me to change the name of DemoGL I will first think of fighting it (I'm in the Netherlands, Europe, dunno if SGI has the trademark here to plus my parents in law are both a judge so free legal advice is at hand ;)) and if I don't have a change then I'll port DemoGL to D3D and will abandon OpenGL at all.
SGI has to understand it's the developers at the moment which keep OpenGL alive. Scaring away these developers will scare away the lifesource OpenGL needs so much these days.
PS: the email address in the header is fake, in case you didn't know that ;)
--
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Better yet, run your own mail server. Accept all incoming mail, then when one of the messages is from a lawyer, send a fake bounce back message saying your address doesn't exist.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Easy, yes. But you'd be doing the rest of the world a favor if you hold out as long as you can. Every time somebody folds under this kind of pressure, it encourages the big corporations to use the same tactics again.
If nothing else, publicize the conflict as much as possible. Grab some free web space and post copies of the e-mails and such. Submit stories to Slashdot to warn others... oh, wait...
Well, fight the good fight, but try not to get sued into oblivion.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
SGI vs. California
In a recent SlashDot story, users of the popular website were made aware of SGI's attempts at closing down sites with the words "Open" and "GL" in them. Siting violation of Intellectual Property, possible confusion of one of it's name brands, and lost revenue.
This apparently was not enough to ensure SGI's survival during this tumultuos time for Tech Companies. In a press conference held just a few minutes ago, SGI's spokeperson Richard Cranium (Dick Head for short) stated that letters have been sent out to millions of businesses who use the "We are Open" signs. Apparently, the letter states "SGI holds the trademark for 'Open', and unless a licensing agreement can be reached, you are hereby required to cease and desist the use of your 'We are Open' signs".
When asked about possible options to small business owners, Mr. Cranium stated "This is California, you better learn to read Spanish and just use 'Estamos Abiertos' instead of our trademarked 'Open' sign."
California Governor Gray Davis was quoted as saying "I am abierto to changes in our culture".
This seems to me like another case of Slashdotters running crying everytime a copmany steps on what they mistakenly consider their rights. Let's look at this logically. Is a name like "OpenIL" confusable with "OpenGL?" Sure is. If I heard about something named OpenIL, I'd instantly assume it had something to do with OpenGL, and I might even go as far, as I bet a lot of "end users" would, as to assume that it was from the same people. This is futerh complicated by the fact that the logos are similar enough to perhaps cause some confusion for those not too familiar with OpenGL. Trademark law was created, and in my mind rightly so, to stop this kind of confusion between products. My advice? Change the name. It doesn't sound like SGI sent out the big nasties, just a polite letter. They were even cosiderate enough to have a conversation with the guy via email rather than just more threatening letters. Oh, and Slashdotters? Calm down. Just because a corporation is invoking IP law doesn't make them evil.
Stupid like a fox!
One of the problems of trademark law is that failure to police a trademark can lead to it becomming 'generic' and thus lose the trademark altogether. As a result most large companies hire specialist law firms that do nothing but search for possible violations and crank out nastygrams.
I suspect that what it means is that whoever is in charge of winding up operations at SGI has concluded that the graphics libraries and branding thereon may be one of the companies biggest assets.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Well not to be the stickler, but one can see the gripes of SGI for contacting someone about Open*L as it does resemble (namewise) their product, although I strongly disagree with them bullying someone.
Now one of the things I would consider is, if your Open*L product/business/whatever is in line for competition with SGI in any shape form or fashion, in english... IF YOUR GOING TO MAKE MONEY OFF OF IT, then SGI has every right in the world to bitch.
Think about a company called WindOS, which is similar sounding to Windows (to a non savvy tech person), now their business is making an OS... Do you think Mickeysoft wouldn't have a gripe about it?
Now if they're just typically pushing their weight around, then you could either ignore them, and let them use up tons of funding taking you through the legal system, the creat an outpour of support, if you win the sue the fsck out of them... Or you could comply with them... or....
And this is the best one... Ignore them, I do it all the time when I get threats about stupid spoofs I've done.
erocdrah
360 degrees of Karma
Come 1996, we got an extremely rude registered letter from the software publisher's lawyer, demanding that we relinquish the name to them or face immediate legal action.
We were both pretty irritated by the way they were making the demand, so we visited a local lawyer who specialized in intellectual property law. She told us there was a good chance the company wouldn't be able to win the name back in a suit since we'd been using it for so long and we weren't participating in the same markets they were. So we had her write a nastygram right back at them, politely telling them that we felt we had a valid claim to the name and they could talk to our lawyer if they didn't agree.
A several-week-long exchange ensued, with both sides exchanging reasons why each of us thought the name should be ours. We actually ended up filing a lawsuit against them, mostly to keep them from doing it first so we could control the venue where the case would be argued. Finally they broached the subject of buying the name from us, and that's what ended up happening -- for a sum of money several times larger than our lawyer's fees.
The irony is, if they'd made us a reasonable offer to begin with, we might well have accepted a lot less than we ended up getting, and they wouldn't have had to waste their legal staff's time. But the way they approached us at first, coming in with gun ports wide open, cost them any sympathy we might have had for them.
BTW, I'm purposely not identifying the domain (though it's possible to figure it out) just because... well, frankly, I'd rather not give them the free traffic.
So it absolutely is possible to stand up to this sort of request. You may end up losing the name, but it's also quite plausible that one serious-sounding lawyer letter in reply to their request will be enough to make them go away. It all depends on how dead-set they really are on owning all these names. On the other hand, I wouldn't bring in the lawyers until they do; if you're at the level of exchanging informal E-mail with someone there, try to keep it at that level if you can.
If they are dead-set, you can at least get something out of it in exchange. If it comes to lawsuit threats you may even be able to find a lawyer who'll take the case on a contingency basis.