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Trademarking Open-Source Projects?
dautelle asks: "I had the nasty surprise to receive a letter from a company in New-Zealand asking me to stop using the 'jade' name they have recently trademarked (my open source project has been Java Addition to Default Environment or JADE for short, long before their trademark filing date). I am going to comply, but I wonder if our open-source projects should be trademarked (cost >300$) to prevent such misfortune?"
Trademarks have to be actively defended or else they are diluted and may be declared null. At best, I think, this would mean that anyone could use the name freely (maybe that's the point) but I imagine that a trademark might be awarded to someone else. IANAL. I'm just JADEd with regard to US IP laws.
After I RTFA, it seems that this is a Canadian trademark, not a New Zealand trademark. In fact the letter posted has no mention of NZ at all...
As for who had the name first - From the History on Dautelle's page:
"version 1.0 was # September 12, 2000: Official release of JADE 1.0"
I myself am a New Zealander, in fact, I work just down the road from JADE's HQ, and from their History Page
"Jade Software Corporation combined its research and development capability with its real-world IT experience to create a new enterprise application development environment called JADE that was launched in 1996."
There it is.. Case Closed.
The revolution will not be televised. It won't be on a friggin blog either
Furthermore they *have* to actively defend their trademark. You're welcome to trademark your open source project (a certain operating system kernel is trademarked), but you do need to do it before anyone else does.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
Registering a trademark is not like registering a domain. Registering one only establishes the date when you started using it. If you can show that you were using the trademark before the date it was registered by another company, you are in the clear, and they would be the ones infringing.
... and if you look at my other post in this story, here
You'll see that JADE (in NZ) the has been around since 1996 - Four years before the OSS project...
The revolution will not be televised. It won't be on a friggin blog either
Public Knowledge may also be willing to assist with trademark issues.
The Open Source Law Resource center also carries information regarding law and open source projects, although it is generally for information regarding Open Source licensing issues.
Register your trademark in only one state. That is legal proof that you intend to reserve the name. In Oregon registering costs $20 for each 5 years.
If you are operating outside the state, be sure to document the use.
Consider the case of "Ford", also a common word, and for that matter a common surname. Would you be comfortable if I sold you a car I had whittled in my spare time and which I labeled as a Ford? More realistically, how about brake linings?
Just because Ford has a trademark doesn't mean that the company controls the word. The Ford modelling agency does just fine, for instance, as do scads of other organizations. The real issue is confusion: are you, the hypothetical "reasonable man", likely to mix up the two? Will a wormy apple, for instance, put you off buying an iMac, or are you capable of distinguishing between computers and fruit? Ford has something of a lock on the name in the automotive arena, but not particularly elsewhere. In fact, in my area there's a dealership named Apple Ford.
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