SuSE No Longer Barred From Selling

MobyTurbo writes "According to a press release SuSE is no longer barred from selling Linux as reported and discussed in a thread on slashdot. SuSE is settling out of court with a German company called "Crayon" that claims that the KDE app Krayon violates their trademark. Incidentally, this vulnerability probably applies to several other distributions."

Comments

Not a huge deal.

[RazzleFrog]

Incidentally, this vulnerability probably applies to several other distributions.

I would think this only affects distros that have operations in Germany.

Re:Not a huge deal.

[Anonymous Coward]

One has to wonder how it is possible at all that there are still businesses left in Germany while Gravenreuth is still alive. He can strike at any time, for the most silliest reason.

Come tot think of it, how is it possible that Gravenreuth still lives: hitmen are not that expensive, even in Germany, and if enough computer dealers pooled their money...

Re:Not a huge deal.

[Anonymous Coward]

I asked myself the same question about the hitmen. I have to guess that either he is a Family member or he has lots of protection.

Lawsuits

[whoknows55]

Has Crayon settled with just SuSE or can someone sue Redhat,Mandrake,Debian, ect. on their behalf?

Re:Lawsuits

[Britney]

SuSE is settling out of court with a German company called "Crayon" that claims that the KDE app Krayon violates their trademark

Really? Who will Crayon be after next?

German footballer Stefan Kuntz?

Re:Lawsuits

[thegrommit]

As noted elsewhere, the suit was filed on Crayon's behalf by an ambulance chaser (not the company itself). This yahoo story has more background. Regardless, the suit only affected distribution in Germany of SuSE.

Question: Who Cares?

[CmderTaco]

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colorful argument

[cez]

What does Crayola have to say about this?

Re:colorful argument

[MacroRex]

And what about an another more computer-related company called Cray?

Re:colorful argument

[Anonymous Coward]

crayon, crayoff -- the big panel of lights they do

-Yoda

Summary from ZDNET

[wiredog]

Zdnet reports that the "Krayon" app isn't even included in the distro. Also, "Crayon apparently was not interested in pursuing the case" and "In Germany, trademark suits can be filed by any attorney, even if that attorney doesn't represent the trademark holder" So it looks like the lawyer saw the opportunity for a quick kill, and missed.

Re:Summary from ZDNET

[dybvandal]

lets get a couple facts straight: 1) Gravenreuth often acts without having the "violated" party actually hiring him, which is fine by german law 2) in this case Gravenreuth was hired by the violated party 3) Gravenreuth send SuSe a letter in Okt. or Nov. saying that they may not include any software that violates their trademark but Suse did not feel like doing aynthing about it 4) Crayon as well as Gravenreuth where aware that the program was not part of Suse 7.3 (but there still is a link in some Koffice Menu for the app with the name Krayon) 5) the goal was to prevent SuSe from including a program with the name in any future releases 6) Suse 7.3 was actually never stoppped 7) Crayon did have an interest and the thing was settled without any license fees or other payments

Re:Summary from ZDNET

[subsolar2]

"Crayon" being a common word in english (though not german) I would think the trademark would be invalid. ::shrug::

1) Gravenreuth often acts without having the "violated" party actually hiring him, which is fine by german law.

I think this is a really dumb idea, and as bad as Layers acting as ambulance chasers shopping for law suits. This about as bad as class action lawsuits here where you can be included in one without really having to be aware that you are.

- subsolar

Bringing stupid comments to slashdot for over a year.

Re:Summary from ZDNET

[Hamshrew]

There's an app that isn't included in 7.3? How? Did they somehow forget? That thing is massive!

Re:Summary from ZDNET

[psych031337]

"In Germany, trademark suits can be filed by any attorney, even if that attorney doesn't represent the trademark holder" So it looks like the lawyer saw the opportunity for a quick kill, and missed.

Not quite. On their site, the company that set the legal action rolling claims that they hired the lawyer to ensure the trademark compliance.
It looks more like someone from "Crayon" (the copyright holder) did not have a clue what the "Krayon" software (which is a part of KOffice) on the distro actually did. This is easy to understand, because the software pack named "Krayon" wasn't even on the distro cd's, the installation routine only created a menu entry. At first Crayon`s lawyer only sent a "Declaration of Omission" and asked for signature from SuSE. This would be like saying "OK, we did wrong, we admit, we won't ever do it again or pay the agreed amount if we do". I understand that SuSE declined to sign this statement, which then evoked the lawyer to file the suit for more pressure.
No license charges have been agreed upon and both companies see this as a misunderstanding which they are done with now. The original press declaration, unfortunately only in german language is available on http://www.crayon.de/presseerklaerung.html

Re:Summary from ZDNET

[Lord Azrael]

AFAIK we in Germany also had somebody who managed to register "Webspace" as a trademark. Just like Capatain Zapp already stated in a previous post, as a trademark holder you then have to defend your trademark if other people are using that word (even if it is something like Webspace!). So this guy via that notorious Gravenreuth lawyer send mass-mails to hundreds of people who used "webspace" on their homepage and these people all had to pay the costs for that laywer (think it was ~ 600 Euro)

now we call it "markengrabbing" (trade-mark grabbing) here.

in a second instance a other court said this is not valid and he lost that trademark again, but that laywer earned quite a few bucks.

http://www.afs-rechtsanwaelte.de/webspace1.htm
http://www.markengrabbing.de

Re:Summary from ZDNET

[dybvandal]

well you may not get a trademark on commonly used words ... the problem is that so many new words come up and become standard use in such short time these days the usual procedure was to check the "Duden" which used to be uptodate enough so if a word was common use (some words actually became common use after being included in the "Duden") would appear in the "Duden" well obviously this does not work anymore and so as many procedures it was to be reevaluted in this day and age also when you register a trademark the trademark office (or whatever it is called) does not check existing trademarks. it is your responsibility as the trademark owner to ensure that nobody registers a trademark that violates yours. so you actually have to hire someone to keep checking new registrations to ensure that nobody violates your trademark this gets even worse with the overlapping nationals and european trademarks

Re:Summary from ZDNET

[MobyTurbo]

Interesting info about Gravenreuth, but SuSE 7.3 was actually stopped - a temporary court injunction baring them from distributing SuSE Linux in Germany was filed by the judge, according to the story previously posted here. However, it appears that they weren't stopped much longer than a day or so. :-)

"Bugs"

[bob@dB.org]

Current trademark laws are "bugs". We need to fugure out how to remove these bugs, not just how to patch the symptoms.

Re:"Bugs"

[RazzleFrog]

While laws are pretty screwed up here in the US, they seem even worse in Germany. If you want to see all the Crayon trademarks in the US then just use TESS. That's the US Trademark Electronic Search System. You can see that you can use Crayon as long as you don't use it for a product similar to the ones listed there.

Trademark dilution? Really?

[Tsar]

I suppose they must have done some market research and discovered that only a small percentage of children were actually eschewing real Crayons and turning to a KDE menu option for their coloring needs. Their colored-wax-stick market share is safe.

Do we know what trademark was violated?

[javilon]

And why it did take it against SUSE instead of against the writer of the application?

Or if they are going to do something against Red Hat, Mandrake, Debian, etc...

And what the name of the application is?

Re:Do we know what trademark was violated?

[sconest]

I suppose this is due to the fact that Suse is a german company and that it is easier to sue a national company than a foreign one.
Then again, IANAL.

Re:Do we know what trademark was violated?

[Anonymous Coward]

And why it did take it against SUSE instead of against the writer of the application?

Because everybody knows that you never file suit against someone who doesn't have any money. The first law of Western Civilization is: NEVER SUE POOR PEOPLE.

Re:Do we know what trademark was violated?

[Asic Eng]

And why it did take it against SUSE instead of against the writer of the application?

'Cause the application isn't even distributed anymore, it's just a dead entry in a start menu...

Besides the writer of the application is probably not even a commercial entity, but SuSE is.

Re:Do we know what trademark was violated?

[Snowfox]

And what the name of the application is?

It's one thing when you're too lazy to read the linked story before responding. It's quite another when you're too lazy to read the write up before responding! Egads!

And +4!?

Re:Do we know what trademark was violated?

[Arandir]

The authors of the application are not distributing it. KDE is distributing the source, and they have mirrors in Germany, so a better question is why Buttplug and Company aren't suing KDE.

Maybe US Crayola should sue German Crayon :-)

Wonder if Binney&Smith have heard of this...

[wowbagger]

Since they are Crayola, could they bring suit against the German company? Could a lawyer in Gemany bring suit against the folks who brought suit against SuSE? Could a lawyer nominally working for SuSE bring suit on behalf of Binney&Smith?

HOT GRITS

[Anonymous Coward]

DOWN MY PANTS

Re:HOT GRITS

[Anonymous Coward]

Word.

Re:HOT GRITS

[Anonymous Coward]

warm bawlz resting on the bridge of your nose.

More like unauthorised action than a settlement

[Polaris]

Actually, it seems the attorneys who took out the injunction were acting without the authority of the trademark holder, who was then found to be indifferent to the issue and not interested in pursuing it. It seems to be a quirk of German law that attorneys can do this (act first and get authorisation later).

A bit off-topic, but...

[CmderTaco]

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Other comments

[grid geek]

The Register has an article on this story here

Much more details at The Register

[boa13]

Read this.

Re:Much more details at The Register

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn. He got modded redundant even though he posted almost at the same time as the other guy. How do you know who started typing first?

Re:Much more details at The Register

[Anonymous Coward]

Special embedded image tags in the submit page let the moderators know the exact pico-second at which the first character was typed.

Theres also a hidden FORM tag that indicates how sexy the submitter is, too.

Re:Much more details at The Register

[boa13]

Theres also a hidden FORM tag that indicates how sexy the submitter is, too.

Darn, they finally got a picture of me.

Re:Much more details at The Register

[boa13]

You probably can't. What I know is that when I began writing my message there was no other message mentionning The Register.

typical of those damn nazis

[neal n bob]

filthy aryan swine

i'm just glad

[kraada]

this wasn't in the US . . . because if it were not only would the company care, they'd realize they could make a killing. thankfully Germans seem to realize that such lawsuits shouldn't really happen, and drop them.
Go Germany :)

Re:i'm just glad

[RazzleFrog]

You're kidding right? It's the f'ed up laws of Germany that got SuSE into this mess in the first place. In the US you can't just sue somebody without the company knowing. You also wouldn't win shit unless somebody has a trademark on Crayon computer software.

Re:i'm just glad

[jonas_e]

No, that's not it. They realized that they couldn't win the case, but that SUSE would have more to loose by stop selling the product.

Oh, and btw "Go Germany" will always just sound wrong to me.

Re:i'm just glad

[Lars T.]

According to this article (in German), Gravenreuth did act on behalf of the company.

The company (or rather their lawyer Gravenreuth) send an "Abmahnung" against SuSE to not publish CDs with Krayon on it. SuSE didn't sign it (probably because the CDs didn't even contain Krayon), and then the company got an injunction against SuSE.

Re:i'm just glad

[Bake]

So, by your analogy I could start my own distro and call it .. say .. Coca Cola and NOT have to worry about legal actions from the Coca Cola company since they don't produce computer software?

Re:i'm just glad

[arkanes]

It's my understanding that you actually can. I don't believe you could use the distinctive Coca-Cola logo, or an image of a Coke can to distribute your product, however. On the other hand, IANAL, and Coke has lots of them.

Re:i'm just glad

[RazzleFrog]

Believe it or not Coca-Cola actually has trademarks on several items including mousepads, kitchen timers, salt&pepper shakers, notepads, and a lot more. I didn't see software in the few I looked through but if their lawyers missed it then you are good to go. Check out Tess and search for Coca Cola.

Just a scam

[Goose In Orbit]

According to The Register, the whole thing was just a scam-some-cash scheme by Crayon, aided by some lawyer with a bit of a reputation for this sort of thing...

Link to Slashdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the point of linking to Slashdot? In case we couldn't find it?

Everyone email me: H8edAtSlashdot@hotmail.com

[CmderTaco]

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sjlkfjdskfjsdfkjsf

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey! I think the register is covering the story. But I could give less of a fuck either way. Sieg heil!

Re:Wonder if Binney&Smith have heard of this..

[jayhawk88]

Perhaps crayon is considered a general word, like tissue. The trademark name comes from the brand, in this case Crayola (Kleenex).

Re:Wonder if Binney&Smith have heard of this..

[RazzleFrog]

Unless Crayola has a trademark in Germany then they are pretty much out of luck. Also, see my link above for Tess and see if Crayola even has a trademark on Crayons. Seems to me that Crayons came before Crayola but I am too tired to do the research myself (is there a mod for lazy?).

Re:Wonder if Binney&Smith have heard of this..

[tshoppa]

Since they are Crayola, could they bring suit against the German company?

No, probably not. The German trademark laws are strong in protecting trademarks of German companies, but an "outsider" stands no chance. Besides, I don't think that Binney&Smith have ever claimed that they own the trademark on "crayon", just "Crayola"

German companies have been "punitively" stripped of their trademarks outside of Germany, however. Perhaps the most famous example is the Bayer trademark on Aspirin; this trademark was taken away in the US and it became a generic term there sometime around WW I. In most of the rest of the world it is a trademark, not a generic term.

Re:Trademark dilution? Really?

[supertsaar]

http://www.crayon.de/produkte.html They make software, not crayons :)

Enemies

[Glanz]

Someone ought to stuff the crapheads of that lawyer and the president of that company's pres in the nearest public, open source, city park toilet. I wouldn't be surprised if that lawyer was paid by Micro$lop Corp. That sounds like one of their typically slimy moves.

Re:Enemies

[dr_hassel]

No. Gravenreuth (the lawyer) has never worked for M$ AFAIK. But law suits like this one are very common in germany :-(

An example: we have here a small company Symicron GmbH (point at the link "Unsere Produkte"), which has a trademark for "explorer". The lawyer of that company is Gravenreuth, and there have been a couple of suits against several individuals and companies, mostly because they made links on their web sites to software like ftp explorer or distributed it somehow. (Fortunately Gravenreuth has lost most of these cases.)

M$ Germany has an agreement with Symicron about using "explorer" for their windows exploder, and that is the only reason why they didn't meet Gravenreuth at the court.

Gravenreuth is really a very ugly person and has no friends, but that doesn't mean he works for M$ :-)

Re:Enemies

[Glanz]

Well, Microsoft doesn't know what they're missing.LOL It's hard to believe people like that exist. Phew!!! This renews my lake of faith in "the Law" ...

Re:Enemies

[dr_hassel]

no one can say Gravenreuth is a moron...

Re:Enemies

[Glanz]

Gravenreuth is a moron. There, I said it, but that doesn't make it true.LOL ...or false.

KDE seems..

[Anonymous Coward]

..to have a lot of this sort of thing happening lately.

Maybe they should start doing something constructive with names, and pound out programs like KDE Text Editor, KDE Drawing Program, KDE Buzzwordless Program.

Really, why do programs need 'cool names'?

If it's a text editor, call it a freakin' text editor. If it's a browser, call it a freakin' browser. If it's a set of bash scripts that includes AI and the ability to run a tech site, call it CmdrTaco!

Re:KDE seems..

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn, you make a good point there. If I had mod points I'd ejaculate across your face.

This is stupid - "Crayon" is a common french word

[Anonymous Coward]

How can "crayon" be a trademark or a copyright... It's like saying the word "windows" is a trademark... oh wait.

Mod this comment up!!!

[CmderTaco]

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Re:This is stupid - "Crayon" is a common french wo

[RazzleFrog]

Crayon, much like any other word can be trademarked for a specific use (like Apple). Check out Tess (see link below) and do a search for Crayon. While you're there, read about trademark laws.

The lawyer responsible has history of extortion

[Zergwyn]

It pisses me off that the company Crayon itself admitted that it was just looking for a quick buck. Crayon is so generic, it KDE would almost certainly have won in court, but like so many other tech companies the time it would take while it would be barred from distributing SuSE made it easier just to settle. Which is exactly what one Günther von Gravenreuth was counting on. As stated in The Register, "He presents himself as a normal lawyer, but in fact he is a dangerous criminal. He is dangerous because he infiltrates the judicial system by means of legal practices. His intentions are destructive. He tries to hurt legally inexperienced developers, designers, service providers and other members of the information technology generation.

In particular, he uses the regulations of trademark and patent law, because in this area the judical uncertainty is very high."

It always annoys me to see this kind of abuse of the legal system, where over complicated proceedings and legal language makes it too much trouble for companies to fight, and encourages them to just settle. This rewards frivolous suits, instead of punishing them as it should. Sigh.

So when...

[boltar]

...are Crayon going to sue the Oxford English Dictionary for using their trademark without
permission inside?

This is crazy , its farcical enough when a company sues over a common word in the own
language that they've decided to trademark (Windows anyone?) but when its *another*
language isn't it about time someone started banging together the heads of trademark lawyers???

Crayon

[Anonymous Coward]

Crayon(c) is a french word(c). I dont get it, why is there company(c) that have the right to copyrights some words(c) that existed for hundreds of years.

Re:Crayon

[Anonymous Coward]

I know you will be modded a troll in a second but just so you know - Copyright and Trademarks are two different things.

Re:Crayon

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok. So this gets modded down but the original ignorant post survives. Somebody metamoderate the moderator on this.

This is old news.

[st.n.]

Oh well, I already submitted this story more than 24 hours ago to Slashdot, and it got rejected immediately. Now it finally got its place on the front page!

- Stephan.

Re:This is old news.

[inicom]

Yes, what's up with the moderators?

They are rejecting submissions and then days later when it is no longer NEWS approving the same submissions from their friends!

The S/N ratio on slashdot is getting worse. I finally giving serious thought to dropping it from my daily reading list.

Dr. Andrew E. Mossberg

In some countries,

[jd]

if a trademark becomes the generic term (eg: hoover is both the name of a product, and a verb to describe the act of using a vaccuum cleaner), then the company has a much more limited control over that name.

Crayon is pretty much in that state. A "crayon drawing" is a drawing made with the application of coloured wax sticks. It does NOT require the use of wax sticks from a specific company. If a person draws something in crayon, again, it does not mean they went out and selected a specific brand of wax drawing implement.

From that, SuSE should have been able to contend that "crayon", as pertains to anything other than wax sticks, has entered the public domain. As such, it can no longer be subject to trademark suits for anything other than attempts to directly clone the original product and sell that product under false pretenses.

Re:In some countries,

[Anonymous Coward]

hoover is both the name of a product, and a verb to describe the act of using a vaccuum cleaner
No it isn't, what are you talking about?
Does this sound right to you? :
"Sorry, I can't reply to your post in more detail, I'm supposed to be out hoovering the lawn."

Re:In some countries,

[anno1602]

Good point, but this is Germany, remember? "Crayon" is not used here, the word is "Buntstifte" (btw, very original, the french word "crayon" means crayon and is, AFAIK, older than the company. CMIIW).

And SuSE did not need to defend itself against Crayon, as it wasn't Crayon but every German IT-guy's favorite enemy Günther Freiherr von Gravenreuth who sued them.

Greets,

Anno.

Re:In some countries,

[jcupitt65]

You use a vac cleaner on your lawn??

Re:In some countries,

[balthan]

Xerox would have been a better choice than Hoover. Especially since I've never heard Hoover used as a verb. Simmilarly, I've never heard crayon used as a verb. "Make sure you crayon inside the lines."

Furthermore, common usage of a word does not prevent it from becoming a trademark. Obviously Crayon (TM) brand crayons would be a bad idea, but using Crayon (TM) brand speaker cable should be ok.

Re:In some countries,

[Anonymous Coward]

zeah, thatás whz itás funnz, morron.

Re:In some countries,

[Anonymous Coward]

OT: In the UK, at least, both "hoover" and "crayon" can be used as verbs.

Re:In some countries,

[jcupitt65]

I was being more sarcastic than you ... you lose :)

bad news for j0n kats

[neal n bob]

The Vatican has quietly issued new rules for Roman Catholic churches around the world to deal with pedophile priests, saying they should stand trial in secret ecclesiastical courts. Pope John Paul and the Vatican issued two documents on the problem in 2001, but they were not presented at press conferences or made public as is usually the case for such documents

Fark!!!

[CmderTaco]

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crayon?

[nege]

That is almost as bad as "windows". and "word". and lets not forget "office".

Re:crayon?

[RazzleFrog]

I've said it a hundred times in this article alone but obviously some people don't know how to read. So instead I will continue your example out of the Microsoft bashing realm that you are stuck. Apple is a generic word. So is Sun. Java is not just a word but a place in Indonesia.

Re:crayon?

[lunky]

Microsoft bashing realm? Did you even read what he wrote? I think this sounds like Microsoft bashing bashing.

Re:crayon?

[RazzleFrog]

Maybe I am wrong but he was comparing this to Microsoft trying to trademark Windows, Word or Office. Sounds like Microsoft bashing to me.

Canadians are stupid!

[CmderTaco]

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22,103 defendants

[Alsee]

Crayon Vertriebs has announced that to inhibit any future potential dilution of market value of their brand "Crayon", they intend to seek injunctions against the following 22,103 defendants:

Arayon 49 hits.
Brayon 463 hits.
Drayon 285 hits.
Erayon 30 hits.
Frayon 100 hits.
Grayon 547 hits.
Hrayon 2 hits.
Irayon 20 hits.
Jrayon 22 hits.
Krayon 12300 hits.
Lrayon 5 hits.
Mrayon 8 hits.
Nrayon 5 hits.
Orayon 56 hits.
Prayon 2750 hits.
Rrayon 4770 hits.
Srayon 52 hits.
Trayon 603 hits.
Urayon 2 hits.
Vrayon 5 hits.
Xrayon 17 hits.
Yrayon 10 hits.
Zrayon 2 hits.

At this time Crayon Vertriebs has not named any defendants using Qrayon 0 hits, Wrayon 0 hits, or rayon 467,000 hits. Crayon Vertriebs reserves the right to name additional defendants in the future.

Re:22,103 defendants

[Alsee]

P.S.
I'm Karma Kapped. Don't need +1 funny. I wanna see that sucker labeled +1 effort!

-

Re:22,103 defendants

[ddubois]

And Crayon [google.com] 287,000 hits.

Crayon means 'pencil' in french. Is is funny to see that some could use virtualy any words in a dictionnary and protect it for its own usage....
I should try to protect 'slash' :-)

Re:22,103 defendants

[WWWWolf]

Aww, I think (from linguistic point of view) they're only interested in words with "rayon" preceded by a 'k-like' consonant. Krayon counts, Qrayon would, Xrayon (debatably) and perharps even Hrayon (with hard 'h').

With other variants of the word they probably wouldn't have a case (the lawyer who did this case may be an idiot, but he probably doesn't still want to get laughed out of the court =)

Re:22,103 defendants

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a short Perl script (sorry about the ugly code, I'm just learning) that does the same thing.

Feed it an input file on each line of which is a phrase, it outputs a series of numbers, one per line, representing how many hits that phrase has on Google. If you change the first function call to the who_is() function (the call #d out now) instead of the other one, it looks it up via whois.com and prints 1 (registered) or 0 (unregistered). Only works on .com, .net, and .org addresses.

Warning: VERY slow -- POST's, waits for reply, and downloads the whole result page, before finally parsing out the relative information, in typical Perl fashion. (I wouldn't use this on a large block of input. I'm sure there are sites that do blocks of who_is lookups for you. As for sites that will rape Google for you, can't help you there.)

[Script censored by Slashdot.]

Re:22,103 defendants

[Anonymous Coward]

I hereby claim Qrayon as a product name for a double-ended toothpick-sized thing with cotton swabs on each end. (Also known as a q-tip).

Re:22,103 defendants

[Anonymous Coward]

[Script censored by Slashdot.]

Are you serious? Did slashdot really censor this guy's code? Why?

Re:22,103 defendants

[grahamm]

They could not go after 'rayon' as this has been used as the name of a fabric since before personal computers were invented.

Re:22,103 defendants

[Alsee]

Qrayon as a product name for a double-ended toothpick-sized thing with cotton swabs on each end. (Also known as a q-tip).
No, a Q-rayon is a double-ended toothpick-sized thing with different color wax on each tip.

-

Re:22,103 defendants

[Anonymous Coward]

it's called a lameness filter, kid.

Re:22,103 defendants

[Anonymous Coward]

obviously i meant whois.net

Re:22,103 defendants

[Matey-O]

I thought a Q-rayon was a particle made up in Star Trek: TNG episode #4-127 to escape the BumpyHeaded Alien du-jour.

It also got Wesley laid, and gave Geordie sight for 12 minutes.

Re:22,103 defendants

[RazzleFrog]

Slashdot is trademarked for News features and public commentary by BlockStackers Inc. CORPORATION MICHIGAN 116 E 18th St Holland MICHIGAN 49423. There are some 86 trademarks (including dead ones) that include the word slash.

Re:22,103 defendants

[Anonymous Coward]

They could not go after 'rayon' as this has been used as the name of a fabric since before personal computers were invented.

I couldn't figure out if you intended this to be Insightful, Interesting, Funny, or Underrated. So I responded instead.

Re:22,103 defendants

[Anonymous Coward]

Where can I read more about this lameness filter? Thanks!

Re:22,103 defendants

[Anonymous Coward]

Where can I read more about this lameness filter? Thanks!

I dunno. Try your local public library.

Why SuSE SuCKS!

[SlaveTroll]

Linux plain sucks. I tried it out not long ago and I thought I'd share it with you guys how bad it sucks. I am a long time user of Mac OS, so that proves I have an above average intelligence when it comes to PC's. First off many of you probably are not aware that Linux will not even install in Windows 98 SE. I'm not sure what version of Windows Linux runs in but there was no warning on the box about it being incompatible with Windows 98 SE (I actually think this may be a driver issue - for the not so technologically advanced crowd these are software DLL's that Microsoft makes from hardware spec sheets). I thought possibly it just didn't have autorun.exe on the Red Hat CD (the makers of Linux) so I looked all over the CD and didn't find any install.exe or setup.exe's. It looks like the QA department at Red Hat is well below the level of Microsoft's because Microsoft would never let a CD that is missing files get shipped out! I work on compilers for the Intel architecture all the time and I know how simple it is to make a InstallShield - if Linux isn't capable of getting a InstallShield programmed into a CD are you really going to risk of letting Linux damage your computer's hardware?! I even checked on the Debian and FreeBSD homewebpages for updates to the Linux CD, for those of you who don't know these are more "hacker" advanced user based Unix (they actually have a Unix kernel built into them and you have to configure it) and there was no update to install the InstallSHield problem on Linux 7.2 - keep in mind it has been out for months and Windows 98 SE can still not install it. So basically you have to downgrade to Windows 95 and lose stability just to get Linux installed or if you want the stable version of Red Hat you have to get Windows NT based kernel O/S (that stands for operation system for you non-techies, basically it handles stuff like compilers and floating point data) like Windows NT 4.0 Workstation or Windows XP. So that means you are looking at spending at least $200 for Linux Red 7.2 to just get it up and running before you even buy any applications for it - hey you Linux biggots I thought it was free? Yah right, everyone knows you get what you pay for, Linux is free so it is crap. And by the way I spent $29.95 calling Microsoft Technical Support trying to see if those gurus could help me get Linux 7.2 installed and they said they are no longer supporting it... everyone knows with out tech support you may as well not even use the program cause if something messes up on it - you're screwed! So apparently Microsoft sold off Linux to another company... and guess what they don't even have a phone # to reach them at! If Linux can't publish a street address and phone number it just proves they are too chicken to backup their product because they know it is garbage!

SuSe's long, sad history

[Anonymous Coward]

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF

+MONDAY MORNING+
Cmdr Taco: I will not suck any more dick ever again.
+MONDAY EVENING+
Cmdr Taco: *slurp* *slurp* *slurp*

+TUESDAY MORNING+
Cmdr Taco: I will not suck any more dick ever again.
+TUESDAY EVENING+
Cmdr Taco: *slurp* *slurp* *slurp*

+WEDNESDAY MORNING+
Cmdr Taco: I will not suck any more dick ever again.
+WEDNESDAY EVENING+
Cmdr Taco: *slurp* *slurp* *slurp*

+THURSDAY MORNING+
Cmdr Taco: I will not suck any more dick ever again.
+THURSDAY EVENING+
Cmdr Taco: *slurp* *slurp* *slurp*

+FRIDAY MORNING+
Cmdr Taco: I will not suck any more dick ever again.
+FRIDAY EVENING+
Cmdr Taco: *slurp* *slurp* *slurp* *slurp*

+SATURDAY MORNING+
Cmdr Taco: I will not suck any more dick ever again.
+SATURDAY EVENING+
Cmdr Taco: *slurp* *slurp* *slurp*

+SUNDAY MORNING+
Cmdr Taco: Today is the Lord's day.
+SUNDAY AFTERNOON+
Cmdr Taco: *slurp* *slurp* *slurp*

SuSE and the rest of Linux is dying

[SlaveTroll]

Linux is dying
Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered Linux community when last month IDC confirmed that Linux accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that Linux has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Linux is collapsing in complete disarray, as further exemplified by falling dead last in the recent Kreskin test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Linux's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Linux faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Linux because Linux is dying. Things are looking very bad for Linux. As many of us are already aware, Linux continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. Red Hatis the most endangered of them all.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

Debian leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of Debian. How many users of Mandrake are there? Let's see. The number of Debian versus Mandrake posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 Mandrake users. Debian posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of Mandrake posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of Debian. Arecent article put Red Hat at about 80 percent of the Linux market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 Red Hat users. This is consistent with the number of Red Hat Usenet posts.

Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek,abysmal sales and so on,Red Hat went out of business and was taken over by SuSE who sell another troubled Linux. Now SuSE is also dead, its corpse turned over to another charnel house.

All major surveys show that Linux has steadily declined in market share. Linux is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Linux is survive at all it will be among Linux hobbyist dabblers. Linux continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Linux is dead.

Linux is dying

Same Game?

[digitaltraveller]

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't this the same guy who was bullied a few months ago over the name Killustrator by Adobe?
The concept of trademarking common english is dubious at best and completely retarded at worst. Trademarks should be limited to unique LOGOS - not words. One simple test: "Can I find this word in a dictionary?" If so, no trademark should be granted on it. There is a big difference between "Floor, Dog, Architect, Illustrator" and "Coca-Cola, the Taste of a new Generation".

Re:Same Game?

[cloudmaster]

Well, I'm not sure that "common english words" really applies when in Germany - given that German is the primary language spoken over there... :)

Re:Same Game?

[TeleoMan]

I dunno, "Euro" sounds pretty English like to me *and* it is now the official currency of Germany.

;-)

Re:Same Game?

[RazzleFrog]

I'm afraid his post is not insightful but just plain stupid. Trademarks for common english words make up most of US Trademarks. If Apple could not trademark the word Apple for computers then I could go out and build a Windows box and call it an Apple PC. This would obviously be misleading to the general public. This is how trademark laws work. Next time, you and the moderator should do some research first.

Re:Same Game?

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is, you'll find that the way the English say Euro bears almost no resemblance to the way the German's say Euro.

SuSE & Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Although this is more or less good news, I've been wondering why the majority of SuSE news posted is negative (e.g. New Financing And Fewer Staff @ SuSE, IBM And Intel Help Rescue SuSE From Insolvency, SuSE Announces More Layoffs, SuSE Lays Off (Most) U.S. Staff (Updated)), while releases 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3 of their distro have been ignored. Check it out. I know at least one person submitted the 7.2 and 7.3 releases.

Re:SuSE & Slashdot

[yota]

Easy: SuSE uses a tool which is not opensource (YAST) and has a licence which makes difficult to distribuite its CD. Thus we at /., opensource maniacs, don't like SuSE. ;)

Andrea

Re:SuSE & Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

I made that post as an AC because I was sure it would get modded way down. Now we can see that it didn't. Coincidentally, I was thinking the same thing you were. Additionally, 7.1 was the first version to be without an installable iso available via ftp.

Now my original post can get modded down.

Re:SuSE & Slashdot

[yota]

> I made that post as an AC because I was sure it would get modded way down. Now we can see that it didn't. Coincidentally, I was thinking the same thing you were. Additionally, 7.1 was the first version to be without an installable iso available via ftp.

Argh... I'm an unexpirienced /.'er and I got iper modden down... mine wanted to be an ironical/informative post... and I got my (little) karma burned down! Poor me ;(

Andrea

Proprietary Eponyms

[gpinzone]

There are a list of active trademarks used generically as well as a list of defunct ones here: http://rinkworks.com/words/eponyms.shtml Hmmm... I never knew "Aspirin" was a trademark.

Re:Proprietary Eponyms

[tshoppa]

I never knew "Aspirin" was a trademark.

It still is, outside the US.

Re:Proprietary Eponyms

[Ed Avis]

Surrendering the trademark Aspirin was part of Germany's reparations after WWI (I think). That's why it's a generic term in Britain and the US (it may still be a trademark in Germany).

Re:Proprietary Eponyms

[MindStalker]

Aspirin, as well as Heroin (that is also on the list) were developed by a german company Bayer (yes Bayer is german) its talked about shortly at http://www.aspirin.com/faq_en.html
but basically When Germany lost WWII America decided it really likes those products and took them. Sadly it was discovered Heroin wasn't safe, and the both markets discontinued productions. Oh well :)HAHA

Page Lengthening Day!!!

[CmderTaco]

I delcare today Page Lengthening Day on Slashdot!

I respectfully request all trolls and crap flooders to post as many page lengthening posts as possible!!!

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Crayon was not interested in the lawsuit

[quinticent]

Basically they said they could care less and that the lawsuit brought on their behalf was done so unknowingly to them. In Germany anybody can sue on behalf of someone else in cases of trademark violations even if that party has no connection with the trademark holder. To top that off the bar for preliminary injunctions is much lower than that in other countries.

I sure miss page widening...

[CmderTaco]

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I

[Treeluvinhippy]

with partnership with B® and C® have formed® a new ecommerce company whose vision is to bring whatever to wherever all around® the planet with unlimited® capacity. This meld®ing of giants has the new and original name of D®

Our business plan is generate revenue by suing anyone and® everything that has violated® our cherished® and world® reconigzed® trad®emark.

For example the online forum Slashd®ot. If you will notice the third® from last letter you will see our trad®emark is once again used® without out our consent and you can be sure our lawyers are stand®ing by to d®ishout our creamy brand® of messed® up justice on the bagel that is the internet.

Once we have generated® enough revenue we will commence with bringing unlimited® broad®band® access that is afford®able to everyone, be they eskimo or aborigine. Although I will ad®mit we haven't a clue how we're going to pull it off.

D® and d® are registared® trad®emarks of D® Ecommerece®. B® and C® are registared® trad®emarks used with permission. Any other letter of the english alphabet that is owned® by another company we are a small startup and it isn't worth it to come after us.

No it's not stupid

[CaptainZapp]

...it's called extortion and is pretty common paractice in Germany. Essentially it works like this:

Find a victim

Go to a court and demand preliminary injunction. It's not really important that you have grounds for that, you only have to convince a judge

A mass-cease and desist mailing (with hefty lawyerly costs attached) is an alternative approach

Offer entity suffering from the injunction that for a low, low service charge the injunction could be lifted

Find new victim and repeat ad nauseum

That's not to say that I condonce such behavior. It's pretty much a rip-off scheme comparable with what some US ambulance chasers do by suing companies on a grondless basis. But as long some German laws are pretty rediculous*), this will not stop.

The Reg has it in more detail.

*)For example, C&A offered customers a 20% discount in the first week of the Euro intorduction, if they didn't pay cash. A court prohibit that, even though the rebate laws in Germany where relaxed a while ago. If a competitor (or anybody for that matter) doesn't like what you're doing, they get you on grounds of "unfair competition" laws, nowadays.

Re:No it's not stupid

[Ralph JewHater Nader]

To find a real master of the swindling arts, go to a place with lots of jews, such as Israel or Jew York City.

Re:No it's not stupid

[Zenjive]

Jeez, seems the law industry is full of scumbags no matter what country you're in!

One question, though... Why the hell is SuSE, or any other distribution for that matter, being held responsible? What about the developer of the individual app, Krayon? Not that I wish any harm to come to them by this scumbag Greedenheimer, or whatever his name is.

Re:No it's not stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Get his name right..it's Gravenrobber!

Re:No it's not stupid

[CaptainZapp]

It's not that SuSE is responsible for anything. It's just that they are slapped with an injunction which leaves them three choices:

They can ignore it. The problem being, that judges take a dim view on that and it might be the option calling for the most trouble

They can build a new distribution without Krayon(TM, (R), (c), etc). This means that they have to steamroll the CDs that they have on stock, have a new CD pressed, distribute it and potentially call back CD's from their retailers. Sounds expensive to me, or

They can try to fight it and are likely to win. Within this time frame however, they are barred from distributing the 7.3 release and after they win (for which they quite likely won't see an Euro) 7.3 is outdated anyway.

So they probably did the smart thing from a business perspective, payed off the blackmailer and get on with daily business.

This is extremely disturbing for various reasons. Not the least because my dealings with SuSE (since the 6.2 distro) indicate that they're are great company, listening to their users, going the extra mile to help you out in case of trouble (installation support) and still can be extorted by such scumbags.

Re:No it's not stupid

[Zenjive]

Ahh, I understand...

It's like Napster, they weren't the ones actually ripping the tracks and distributing mp3's, but they were providing the method of distribution, so they were held responsible.

Still pretty disturbing that a rogue lawyer can act on an alleged copyright infringement without the consent of the copyright holder. The whole crayon/krayon thing is fringe anyway. Would I be violating a copyright by using the word "vindows" simply because it looks or sounds like "windows"

Besides, isn't the company name "Crayola", crayon is a dictionary term, right? I'm not sure, seeing as I haven't been keeping up with the whole "crayon" scene since 3rd or 4th grade.

Why SuSE?

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

The part I don't understand about this whole saga is why SuSE? It's not "their" application, it's just in their distribution. Hell, thechnically, they aren't even selling it (they can't because of the GPL). They are just putting it on a CD and in a box for us. What about RedHat or Mandrake? Are they goning to have to brave these same elements?

Now, I understand that RH and MDK are not German companies and would be out of Crayon's "jurisdiction". Sooooo... what then about KDE? Granted KDE isn't a real "company", nor all all the hackers that are apart of KDE residing in Germany, but KDE is indeed (losely) based in Germany. Are they going to have to change it's name AGAIN?

P.S. Sorry for bad spelling, I haven't had coffee yet... :-\

Re:Why SuSE?

[glwtta]

You miss the crucial point - KDE doesn't have boxes to sell. Since Crayon would never be able to win this in court (even in Germany) they needed to sue someone who had good incentive to settle quickly. Voila.

Re:Why SuSE?

[2Bits]

Sooooo... what then about KDE?

Because there's nothing to milk from KDE hackers. What is this Gravenreuth going to get sueing a bunch of poor hackers?

Re:Why SuSE?

[jarran]

they aren't even selling it (they can't because of the GPL)

The GPL does not prevent you selling software.

From GPL v2:

if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have.

Re:Why SuSE?

[tunah]

Hell, thechnically, they aren't even selling it (they can't because of the GPL).

Yes, they can and are.

Crayon - Cray?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone, which calls itself CRAYON, not actually uses the business success and/or the name of Cray?

Shouldn't we anmailen there CRAY? * gggg *

Dubious method

[Anonymous Coward]

Who sends a warning now to Crayon because of copyright injury at Tom&Jerry to only prevent in order that those sometime times these figures on their CD's burn.

Protection money blackmailers work similarly.

Good thing you linked to slashdot!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Otherwise i would not have known what you were talking about. since you linked to it though iw as able to find it onthe web.

Thanks!!!!!!!!!

PS: You suck.

Kine royalty payments......

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps rather it shit that (OpenSource) Community Crayon bankruptcy makes...
F.v.G. lives on its (profesionell) bad reputation...

because they have money.. duh

[joss]

Also, SuSE certainly does sell SuSE. They can't prevent other people from copying/selling/whatever the GPL'ed parts of the distribution, but there is no restriction in GPL about selling GPLed software, in fact it is explicitly permitted.

Puh!

[Anonymous Coward]

There SuSE has however again luck had...
I believe however that from now on will watch out more exactly, what also in the Distri comes. And being illusory light not only SuSE, but also some other one in this area.

Come on

[__past__]

This is nothing. The Deutsche Telekom once sued a company because they produced a magenta-colored book, and another one because their name was "T-Media". The letter t and the color magenta are part of their trademark.

Maybe that's why there is no CMYK in the Gimp

We reached something...

[Anonymous Coward]

.... a so large attention in the Oeffentlickeit....

Now it would not have thought at all that the discussion carries fruits. Nevertheless is it unfortunate that no precedent came here against the grassierenden mischief regarding marks.

Freiherr von Gravenreuth...

[Sytek]

This lawyer has some reputation in germany. If you want to tell him, what you think about persons like him... or if you need more information look at http://www.gravenreuth.de or mailto mail@gravenreuth.de feel free to make his mailserver glow :-)

Re:Freiherr von Gravenreuth...

[Anonymous Coward]

I would just like to say that I would *not* advocate anybody taking it upon themselves to deface his website. Let me repeat myself. I would *not* advocate this. ;)

a hair in the soup...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do not watch out so exactly that somebody means a hair in the soup to find (seen mark legal) can normal humans not at all.
If I all the megabytes at documentation (the individual programs) in the distributions do not think am it nevertheless at all possible as Distributor all this on alleged trademark law injuries to be examined.
Times completely apart from it which I do not see a danger of mistake zwichen Krayon and Crayon.

RE: SuSE allowed to ship. :)

[Nonillion]

I just have to shake my head at what people try to sue over. Lindows and Windows was dumb enough, Crayon and Krayon was even dumber. What's next, is Cray going to sue Crayola Crayon next???

rm -r windows

Better one cannot make oneself ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

NO COMMENT

Strike back !!

[Anonymous Coward]

Moin!

Now the time came to striking back against this bad resident of Munich Abmahnabzocker and this small Klit.

Now one could strike Gravenreuth and this juice shop with the own weapons. Because "Crayon" hurts completely obviously the mark "Cray" of the US company "Cray Inc.." and is in addition a deception. Exactly the same as "Ftp Explorer" the mark "Explorer" and "triton" the mark "Tricon" hurts.

One must find only someone, which obtains EVs against Crayon. I think there of a member from the FFL...

Cray - on

[McFly777]

Perhaps Cray computer should sue crayon for dilution of their trademark.
--McFly

Re:Trademark dilution? Really?

[frankmu]

my son and dog chews (not eschews) crayons

Already used (patented?) business plan

[bockman]

You are kidding, but these people actually do something like that, and expect revenue from it[maybe get it, too]. They also (according to The Reg) invest part of their revenue in more patents, to have more litigation material.

Re:Already used (patented?) business plan

[Treeluvinhippy]

yeah it's a fucked up world isn't it.

US companies are safe of Gravenreuth

[2ri]

Since the US justice persistently ignores theyer part of international law enforcment contracts and does not allow processes against US companies being brought before a juge in the country where the delict took place, in contrast to european companies, who have to defend themselves against ridiculous US laws even though the "delicts" happened outside of the US.

Re:US companies are safe of Gravenreuth

[RazzleFrog]

I assume english is not your first language and commend you on the pretty good attempt. The truth is that when it comes to copyright, trademark, and patent laws companies in one country (including the US) don't have any right to pursue a violation in a country in which they do not have a registered copyright, trademark, or patent. They can of course prevent any offending products from being sold in the US however. If you evidence of the contrary please feel free to post a link to it.

Re:US companies are safe of Gravenreuth

[rifter]

This is not necessarily so. The US has worked in the past toward a goal of making the respect of US IP law part of any trade agreement, and the WTO and Europe have mostly been agreeable to that. I am not sure how far we have gone in this area, but essentially the idea is that the government of another country faces the demand they must allow the US to police their country in this area in return for the ability to trade with the US.

Re:US companies are safe of Gravenreuth

[Anonymous Coward]

In theory, IP rights are only valid in one country. The Internet, however, cannot be limited to one country - a www page is accessible from any given country.

Thus, if you use a specific term on your internet site, someone in, say, China or any other place could view the page and find it to be confusingly similar to their local (e.g. Chinese, although not likeley :-) trademark. And they could sue you before a local court.

In practise, this has happened! A French court has ordered a German company to cease use of a .com-domain which "infringed" a French trademark.

Especially US courts have a disturbing tendency to assume competence to rule over almost anything in the world.

Re:US companies are safe of Gravenreuth

[RazzleFrog]

Again there is not much you can do in the way of enforcement though. If I don't have offices in China, don't do business in China, and never plan to visit China I am safe. These are civil cases so there is no extradition (and wouldn't be with China anyway). France and Germany happen to be neighbors so a German company probably has a lot of business in France and therefore would be more apt to comply.

France in general is really pushing the envelope on a lot of international issues lately and I wonder when the EU is going to step up and get them under control.

Re:Trademark dilution? Really?

[psych031337]

http://www.crayon.de/produkte.html They make software, not crayons :)

Well... The products are more like collections of comic art, 3D art cliparts and stuff like that. They don't claim to make state-of-the-art software. Maybe they have coded a own proprietary viewer, but their main stream of revenue is in the graphic collection stuff.

So what do you call a crayon?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand how the word "Crayon" can be patented.

What else do you call the things that multiple companies sell? Color-Applicating-Wax-Sticks?

Crayons are made by Crayola. Now, if they called the program Crayola or *possibly* Krayola, then I can see an issue (maybe). But the generic term Crayon?

Re:So what do you call a crayon?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not patented, trademarked. Christ, is the collective IQ of this place declining or what?

Re:So what do you call a crayon?

[AbsoluteRelativity]

Not rude, polite. Christ, is the collective negativity of this place declining or what?

Kill with one stone

[RazzleFrog]

I find myself responding to so much ignorance and stupidity in this discussion that I am going to put everything in one post and use small words to make it easy on all of you. First off, trademark laws differ from country to country. I am going to discuss US trademark laws not because they are the laws in this case but because they clarify some misconceptions in general. From the US Patent Office - A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol or design, or a combination of words, phrases, symbols or designs, that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others. In other words, Oracle has a trademark on the word Oracle (which is a real word) for computer software and database design for others (as well as other things). They have exclusive right to create a software product with the name Oracle. Fedmet Resources Corporation also has a trademark on the word Oracle. Their trademark is for refractory or ceramic brick. You can see that few people would confuse an Oracle database with a brick (no comment). So a company doesn't "own" a word by trademarking it. They reserver the right to sell particular products with that word as its name. I hope this clarifies things for some people.

As long as there is money to be made...

[eaddict]

there will be lawyers and people looking to rake it in. I have a friend who works at a law firm as a paralegal. Her job is to read as much as possible (trade journals/on-line mags/discussion groups) and look for possible revenue streams. If she finds something interesting (interesting does NOT imply use of common sense) she passes it on to a pool of lawyers who dig a bit deeper.

Why they're settling

[volpe]

The German company "Crayon" probably decided that SuSE was small-potatos and that there are other companies that might have more money to extort.

Shocked

[Anonymous Coward]

To think that I thought that the US had the worst Tort system.

From The Register article about it...

[glwtta]

"...app called Krayon, listed in the start menu but no longer supplied..."

The what menu now??

(I know, I know, off topic, blah, blah - sue me.)

Re:From The Register article about it...

[Tralfamadorian]

(I know, I know, off topic, blah, blah - sue me.)

Given the current atmosphere, I think I *will* sue you :)

this is all such bs...

[sootman]

according to the fine folks at merriam-webster (www.m-w.com), the word 'crayon' dates back to 1644. I agree that you shouldn't make a product with a name that is similar to an already exiting product with similar functionality. however, there should exceptions when companies name their products after simple, centuries-old words (crayon, draw, windows, paint, painter, illustrator, write, word) in the first place.

Also, is it just me, or is it strange that the two biggest offenders when it comes to uncreative names are when companies make *writing* and *artistic* programs? I could forgive a math-geek for being too left-brained to come up with anything more creative than "Math", but c'mon... Draw? Word? Sheesh. Maybe we should just go to funtctionality:paltform names, like WordProcessor:Win32 or RasterArt:Mac.

The lesson here

[jabber01]

I think the lesson here is two-fold.

First, companies will leech money from superior sources in any manner they can. If you can't beat them, sue them. Sue them for being named similarly. Hell, next we'll see Microsoft sue Stallman because Emacs can be used for editing text, same as Word.. A clear violation, and interference in Microsoft's Freedom to Compete.. For them, it's a drop in the bucket, for a small company defending against such idiocy, is bankrupcy.

Second part of the lesson? Hackers, don't be so fucking clever with your program names.. Don't call it Krayon if it's anything even remotely similar to Crayon. Don't call it Killustrator if it's an Illustrator work-alike. Don't call it Gnutella if it smells like chocolate and hazelnuts.

Yes, in principle, naming cleverness is a form of expression and should be protected by the Freedom of Speach (which BTW only applies in the US, and even there it's a very iffy thing lately)..

In practice, unless you have money to burn on 'standing up for your principles' in court, name it something else; something that won't give rich companies an excuse to sue.

Re:Trademark dilution? Really?

[McSpew]

IANAL

The German company Crayon doesn't make crayons. The word crayon when referring to crayons is a generic term. Crayola crayons are trademarked.

Trademark law frequently permits trademarking generic terms when they refer to unusual uses of those terms. As an example, think of Microsoft Windows. Even if trademark law didn't permit such trademarking, the German word for crayon isn't "crayon"--it's "zeichenstift" according to babelfish. I'm sure there are US companies that have trademarked words that would be generic in other languages, so it should stand to reason that German law permits trademarking of foreign words that would be generic in their native languages.

Unfortunately, the real problem seems to be with the German court system permitting potentially-disastrous injunctions to be granted on the flimsiest of evidence or without real justification. The German company Crayon should be required to show that failure to grant the injunction would result in serious and irreparable harm before being granted the injunction. It's clear that the injunction was granted on flimsy grounds and shouldn't have been granted in the first place.

Symptom of a Bigger Problem.

[hotsauce]

Maybe so. But the naming issue seems to be a symptom of a bigger problem. Why does the Linux community value copying existing products--down to similar product names--instead of trying something new?

We got a good report from Macworld on /. where we were told Apple continues to blaze new trails. Where are the new killer apps on Linux? The Linux community seems content to copy existing apps and names, and thus can only claim "Freer" instead of also "innovative".

Re:Wonder if Binney&Smith have heard of this..

[Anonymous Coward]

hey I'm all for dishing out the karma, but somebody please explain how this is "funny".

If only...

[nick_davison]

"a German company called "Crayon" that claims that the KDE app Krayon violates their trademark."

If only Seymor was still around to first claim prior art and then sue for them violating the trademarks on the power buttons for his super computers.

Shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to shoot all lawyers, corporate suits, tradermark and patent clerks.

Come to think of it, time to shoot all Americans, Brits, Germans and French. Oh, and Canadians.

At least.

jd's article is not "informative"

[JoeBuck]

jd apparently does not understand that trademarks protect adjectives, not nouns. "Crayon" is not a generic name for a certain type of computer program: the trademark holder has a trademark for a computer program named Crayon, not for the word Crayon. If Suse tried to contend that "crayon" as the name of a computer program has entered the public domain, they would be laughed out of court. The concept you're confused about has to do with, say, Kleenex becoming a generic name for a facial tissue ("a kleenex"). This concept has gotten confused further by the DNS issues: before the domain name fights, it was clearer that you can't own a word, only certain applications of that word ("apple" as the name of a computer is owned by one company, "apple" as the name of a record company by another).

People need to know that if you write a clone of a program, and the program's name is not a generic name for the type of program in question (like "graph" for a graphing program), it's not legitimate to name your program just by putting a K or a G in front of the other program's name. So, "killustrator" would be a clear loser if ever taken to court, because even though Illustrator is a word, it is not a generic term describing a vector-graphics drawing program, and furthermore it will be easy to show that the name is not a coincidence, that the namer intends to suggest a relationship between the two programs.

Similarly, the FSF might well have a case against a proprietary program that uses GNU in its name: even though it hasn't formerly registered GNU, it's been using it as a mark for a long time in business (the FSF sells CDs, tapes, etc) and it is a widely recognized and respected name.

Re:jd's article is not "informative"

[WNight]

While common words "apple" can be trademarked, they can't be used in fields where they are generic descriptors.

Apple Music is okay because Apple is not a type of music. Apple Fruits is not okay because apples are a type of fruit.

A crayon is a generic drawing insturment and a computer program that allows the user to draw, as if with a crayon, should be named "Crayon" or "Electric Crayon" or something.

Whoever granted "crayon" as a trademark on anything resembling a drawing program should be fired. Just like patent examiners who slack off and grant stupid crap which innocent companies then have to defend against later. (Like, who the hell granted that laser-pointer + cat thing...)

Marvelous...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I can go out and buy that $80 proprietary linux distro I've always wanted...

normal word

[austad]

crayon is the french word for pen. I thought normal words were not able to be trademarked. Even though it is in another language, it's still a normal word.

Ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

I fail to see how a word like Crayon could possibly be a legal trademark that disallows someone from using "Krayon." Will they sue Crayola next?

Hurry up US Trademark Office!

[psycho_driver]

I'm expecting my trademark on "pencil" any day now!

Tommorow I think I'll apply for a trademark on the letter e.

Re:Wonder if Binney&Smith have heard of this..

[HiThere]

That's how I've always heard it explained. I was confused about it back around the time that I was 12, and was told at that time that words couldn't be trademarked to mean anything like what they really meant. So Crayolla was trademarked, and crayon was just was a crayon was. Then I asked about Kleenex(tm) (or did I ask about kleenex?).

I'd never even heard the term facial tissue.
.

hypocritical

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely crayon et al. should be obliged to
take every other distribution to court as well.
Failure to do so is hypocrasy, and should
be used as grounds to nullify previous case/s

I'm no laywer, but things like this are just ridiculous

I shopped at Crayon

[Sumocide]

Crayon is a one man company by the same guy who has a small shop here in my town, called "Seidel Softwareservice". I once bought a mouse and keyboard there. I thought he was was a nice guy, but that lawyer Gravenreuth is a leech and belongs to the lowest scum. He's been pulling these schemes for years.