Linux Trademark Protection In Australia

robyannetta writes "Australian companies providing Linux products and services may soon have to pay up to $A5000 a year to licence the operating system name (warning: Registration Required), if the patents agency IP Australia grants a trademark application it is reviewing. About 90 companies with products, services or websites containing the word "Linux" recently received letters of demand from Perth lawyer Jeremy Malcolm. Acting for user group Linux Australia Inc, he asks recipients to sign statements saying their use of the word is subject to the group's licence agreement, which has fees of $A200 to $A5000 under a successful trademark application."

Comments

Appropriate phrasing

[Kelson]

...may soon have to pay up to $A5000 a year to licence the operating system name (warning: Registration Required) [Emphasis added]

So you have to register to read about how people may have to register...

Re:Appropriate phrasing

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.bugmenot.com/view.php?url=smh.com.au

User: SamJones42
Pass: SamJones42

Er, uh

[Luigi30]

Isn't this the kind of thing Free Software was supposed to be against? Anyone can distribute their own flavor of Linux and call it Linux without being threatened by lawsuits over trademarks?

Re:Er, uh

[tomhudson]

Ignore it.

Jere4my Malcom isn't a practicing lawyer. He's a whore for the Church of Scientology.

Just do a google for "Jeremy Malcolm Scientology". All he does is write letters, which you can safely ignore, since he never follows through.

He's just another crackpot trying to hustle a few buck.

Re:Er, uh

[DNS-and-BIND]

I don't know...everything I've read says that the CoS lawyers are mean and vindictive, and spare no expense to make you miserable. Maybe this guy is just a Scientologist, and not part of the cult's legal army?

I tried that Google search you suggested and it looks like he tried to sue Google because Google Search linked to pages where people got pissed off after he tried to sue them.

Re:Er, uh

[Doc Ruby]

What's your problem? I followed the post's advice, and Googled (Jeremy Malcom Scientology) (applying the correct Google syntax for searching for the words, rather than as an exact phrase). I found all kinds of pages documenting Malcom's role both as an abusive lawyer for Scientology in Australia, and as a general abuser of speech/suppression techniques - consistent with the suppressive actions of Scientology worldwide. Maybe you just have poor Google skills, or took the instructions too literally, searching for the phrase delimited by quotes, rather than by parentheses.

Or maybe by "this" (in your "this has to be teh best troll I've ever seen") you meant your own post. Shooting for "best troll". Well, it's not bad, but not so great. All it took to debunk it was to do what the poster to whom you replied instructed (translated to actually work).

In either case, no one has (as of this writing) modded you up. But you should opt out of moderating - you're dangerous.

Re:Er, uh

[QuantumG]

Take a chill pill. He is legit. He's a lawyer. He's representing Linux Australia who are operating under instructions from the Linux Mark Institute who represent Linus. It's all perfectly above board. Lawyers will represent anyone who can pay. To form an opinion of a lawyer based on one case they did is naive to the extreme. If you want to see what Jeremy Malcolm is all about, go read what he has written or look at the other cases he has been involved in. He introduced the first anti-SPAM act in Australia. He actively opposed the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement. He's an advocate for privacy and common carrier protections.

On the other hand, your actions are bordering on libel and have already violated anti-vilification laws in this country.

Re:Er, uh

[jcr]

That's what lawyers do.

Some lawyers actually decline clients who are up to no good. If this guy represented the CoS, then I would consider him less than ethical.

-jcr

Re:Er, uh

[Doc Ruby]

Moderation -1
    100% Flamebait

No, Scientologist TrollMod, the parent to which I replied is "Flamebait", starting in on the ad hominem attacks. My reply is Flame. "Get it straight, before you moderate." - Johnny Cochran

Re:Er, uh

[Doc Ruby]

Except that people are often referred to as, eg., "Mr. Malcolm", or just "Malcolm". So "omitting the quotes" (as Google often recommends when there are few search results) is appropriate. In any event, it's perfectly clear from the content of even just a few of those pages that it's the same sue-happy Jeremy Malcom that we're dealing with here.

The entire point of trademark (as encoded here in the US in the "Lanham Act") is to protect the consumer from mistaking one product for another with the same name ("mark dilution"). It's so oriented to the consumer (at least in principle in the US) that the mark holder is required to "vigorously defend" the mark from dilution: failure to take action to protect the identifiability from dilution, when the mark holder is aware of the dilution, can result in the diluter claiming the mark for themself.

What's wrong with the world is that 1> people trust lawyers (at all, certainly too much), and 2> people are quick to back up these thieves when they too would like to "get rich quick" by stealing someone else's property. Just check the ridiculous flames defending Malcolm I've had to douse in my own threads, to say nothing of the others rampant on this site. Fascists are always quick to squeal "ditto", but (to paraphrase Niemoller) there's always a bigger fish, and the penultimate brownshirt is just bait.

Re:Er, uh

[sir99]

I think we can be pretty sure Linux infringes on hundreds of patents. Just like every other nontrivial program. Supposedly OSRM will tell you which ones if you ask, although they do have a vested interest in saying Linux infringes. But the famous setuid bit patent is one concrete example, albeit expired. Whether the patents "could lead to further litigation" is a different question.

Re:Er, uh

[Doc Ruby]

According to the US State Department, (among others), the definition of trademark "dilution" is:

A type of infringement of a trademark in which the defendant's use, while not causing likelihood of confusion, tarnishes the image or blurs the distinctiveness of the owner's mark. To possess the selling power and recognition protected by antidilution statutes, a mark must be relatively strong and famous, at least within a certain group of people, product line, or territory.

Further clarification is available:
The legal doctrine of dilution, recognized in the statutes or case law of 31 states, applies to marks which are highly similar or identical to strong, well-known trademarks. The doctrine stipulates that the use of a famous trademark by any party other than its owner will result in loss of the mark's distinctiveness - even when the goods or services are not related and there is no likelihood of confusion. Some names may be judged to be available because they are already diluted; not, that is, the name is in use by a number of different companies which may or may not include a famous user.

This means that someone can't use a famous mark to sell their unrelated product, even in a different market (geographical, product type, etc). It applies not only to owners of a mark, who must reregister in another "class" to use it in that class, but also to others who won't be confusing the consumer as to which company is selling the product, but rather what kind of product the mark refers to at all. It is not clear, however, that dilution is restricted to mean only competition with the mark in noncompeting markets, only that the doctrine recognizes such dilution as infringement.

Re:Er, uh

[Pete]

Wow. You've really got something personal against Jeremy, don't you? You should try to restrain yourself on the irrelevant ad hominems, it's really not a classy look.

What's the primary issue you've got? As far as I can tell, it seems to be his statement about the Linux kernel violating patents. Are you angry because you know the statement's true, or because you think the statement's false, or just because a respected person in the Australian Linux community made the statement at all?

Would it piss you off if I did the same? I've got no particular status in the Australian Linux community, but I've got a four-digit slashdot ID under my own name, that's gotta count for something :).

Hey, I absolutely believe the Linux kernel violates some software patents. Most of those patents are probably about as worthwhile as the British Telecom(?) patent on hyperlinks, but some of them are probably less trivial and could (in theory) be enforced.

The legal problem with software patents is that they're given out too easily, they're too wide-ranging and it costs so fucking much in time and money to defeat them. And even if you defeat a patent in one country, that's no guarantee you're safe in another.

So the whole point of people tiptoeing around the patent issue is that they know things could blow up at any time. Would you rather continue to tiptoe? Or would you rather actually do something worthwhile to change the system? Because that's one of the things Jeremy's trying to do.

Re:Er, uh

[jschrod]

Why is this FUD?

Linux clearly violates a number of US patents, this has been researched several times, independently. It's also well argued that patent violations are one of the next battle grounds for OSS. Groklaw reports on these issues on a regular base. This is no FUD, this is reality.

Or, do you want to say that Pamela Jones of Groklaw, who presents the same arguments as cited in your ZDnet article, is `adopting the same FUD tactics as other enemies of open source (particularly SCO)'? Please do so, it's making your drivel as risible as it is.

From your other posts, too, you come around as somebody with foam at his mouth everytime you write about Jeremy Malcolm. Do you know him personally? Did you have contact with him previously?

Please note: I'm not involved in any of these discussions. I don't live in Australia and do no business there. I know from other news sources (that I trust) that Linux Mark Institute is triggering these actions in Australia and not this lawyer. I'm just wondering why you're so full of hate against this guy.

Err, excuse me?

[Famanoran]

Doesn't Linus own the 'Linux' trademark already?

Re:Err, excuse me?

[IceAgeComing]

Here's an article stating as much.

Re:Err, excuse me?

[QuantumG]

and guess who the lawyers are representing. This article is the biggest troll ever to get posted on Slashdot. There's a FAQ for anyone who actually cares to learn what Linus is trying to acheive in Australia.

Re:Err, excuse me?

[stupidnickname]

Yeah, QuantumG posted this same attempt at a refutation of the story elsewhere on this discussion. I still don't get it. You are attempting to refute a claim against a lawyer by referring us to the lawyer's FAQ. That's not an unbiased source.

And, really, what gives you the ability to speak for Linus Torvalds? You may indeed have that warrant, but you have given me no reason to believe so.

And I've seen no clear indication that these lawyers are representing the interests of Linus Torvalds. Can you give me authoritative information that will reassure me?

This is a really weird slashdot post and discussion. I'm very suspicious.

That fucking whore/scientologist

[tomhudson]

Just google for Jeremey Malcolm scientology.

He's a crackpot scientologist.

First hit: http://www.holysmoke.org/cos/lawer-from-hell.htm is really interesting.

Re:That fucking whore/scientologist

[tomhudson]

Guess there are a few scientologists who monitor slashdot ... (which we already knew, since they've tried to get posts that point out how cracked they are removed in the past).

Linkies: http://www.holysmoke.org/cos/lawer-from-hell.htm

snippet:
---&<---&<---
Scientology whore lawyer Jeremy Malcolm DMCAs Google

Following the lead of his master, the "lawyer from Hell" Jeremy Malcolm DMCA'ed Google, demanding the removal of "lawyer from Hell" sites about him.

http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/not ice.cgi?NoticeID=428

Attorney Demands Removal of "Lawyer From Hell" Sites

Dear Sirs

DMCA Complaint

I write to complain about infringements of copyrights held by me (which are also defamatory of me, but I realise defamation is outside of thee ambit of this complaint procedure). The search query which brings up each of the pages below is "[private]".

The results are as follows:
---&<---&<---

or http://www.sweenytod.com/cos/legal/

snippet:
---&<---&<---
cientology have a well deserved reputation of being a very aggressive organisation, accepting no criticism of their organisation or of their dead creator, L Ron Hubbard. They are legendary on the Internet with their attacks on freedom of speech, with legal action on almost every cotenant to force critics to take down web sites.

Well, my humble offering is no exception. Scientology in Perth, Western Australia has started legal action to force me to remove this site. When it became obvious that I was not going to do so, they threatened my ISP with legal action, asking him to remove my site. They even went so far as to offer him immunity from the upcoming lawsuit.

This page will be updated as the situation progresses.
The Players.
Jeremy Malcolm
The lawyer for Scientology is a local man called Jeremy Malcolm. JM used to be on the board of an organisation called Electronic Fronters Australia . EFA is "is a non-profit national organisation formed to protect and promote the civil liberties of users and operators of computer based communications systems."

From his position of fighting for freedom of speech, he is now fighting to stifle it. But that's life. I suppose a man has to do what a man feels he has to do. You can visit Jeremy Malcolm's web sites at the following locations.
---&<---&<---

There's lots more. This guy is a self-promoter, and now he's trying to do a SCO.

Re:That fucking whore/scientologist

[QuantumG]

Take a chill pill. He is legit. He's a lawyer. He's representing Linux Australia who are operating under instructions from the Linux Mark Institute who represent Linus. It's all perfectly above board. Lawyers will represent anyone who can pay. To form an opinion of a lawyer based on one case they did is naive to the extreme. If you want to see what Jeremy Malcolm is all about, go read what he has written or look at the other cases he has been involved in. He introduced the first anti-SPAM act in Australia. He actively opposed the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement. He's an advocate for privacy and common carrier protections.

On the other hand, your actions are bordering on libel and have already violated anti-vilification laws in this country.

Re:That fucking whore/scientologist

[Pete]

Believe it or not, not everything you read on the internet is true.

And he's far from being an advocate of free speech. He is always threatening people with SLAP suits.

It's spelled SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation). And if he's "always" threatening people with such things, perhaps you'd like to refer to at least two examples? You can't? What a surprise.

I've met Jeremy. His company, Terminus Network Services hosts my flooble.net site. All indications are that he's a decent bloke, even if he is a lawyer :).

And regardless of what Jeremy says about any topic ever, regardless of whether he says the earth is flat or that 2+2=4, you're allowed to say he's full of shit. And the rest of us are allowed to dismiss you as clueless. Nice, isn't it?

For a start, it would have been stylish if you'd specifically pointed to his statement about "Linux violating patents" and especially references to "hundreds" of violations. Because, you see, when I look at the GP's link, the only possible link to your statement is Jeremy's article titled Software Patents, the FTA, and the End of All Things. And in that article he includes a quote from him in a ZDNet interview:

There is no question that some of the open source software that is out there - such as the Linux kernel itself - has got patent violations in there. That is acknowledged. There is more danger that those potential violations will be litigated.

Your insinuation (in bold, no less) about "hundreds" of linux patent violations actually comes from a point made by a FSF lawyer (Dan Ravicher), not by Jeremy himself - immediately below the above quote:

The resulting furore on Slashdot was deafening. But my statements aren't actually terribly controversial. Last year, Open Source Risk Management published a paper by Free Software Foundation lawyer Dan Ravicher in which he claimed to have found 283 potential patent violations in the Linux kernel.

If you want to object to the way this trademark licensing thing is being handled, do that. And be specific and refer to your sources. Don't just throw unsupported (and unsupportable) mud (and FUD) on completely unrelated topics. To borrow from one of my favourite sigquotes:

In case you weren't aware, "ad hominem" is not latin for "the user of this technique is a fine debater."

By the way, moderators, I'd suggest you take a look at the grandparent of this post, to which tomhudson was referring. It's had a grossly inappropriate mod to 0, Troll. It'd be nice if you could help to bring it back up to the 2 or 3 that it deserves. Thanks. :)

Re:That fucking whore/scientologist

[tomhudson]

Malcolm is a self-promoter. This was all hashed out here back on March 1st. Nothing's changed since.

Bugmenot link

[nitehawk214]

link

My favoite quote from TF Lawyer "At this point, the exercise is not about extracting fees from people."

No, not at up to A$5000, it couldnt possibly be about the money.

Re:Bugmenot link

[boarder]

If you read the ACTUAL story from the group, it isn't about extracting fees completely.

He isn't saying that you have to pay to use Linux in your business name, he is saying that if you choose to TRADEMARK said name THEN you have to pay.

This is guaranteeing that nobody can trademark the name linux without paying and that nobody can completely trademark the name linux.

Now, I'm guessing that the fee is to pay for the lawyers when someone does license it. It does seem fishy and the lawyers themselves even stated that the letter was poorly written.

Re:Austrailia

[mattjb0010]

Come to Australia instead.

Login:

[Eightyford]

Login: SlashyLaRue

Password: slashdot

Full article for the lazy

[ZakuSage]

Australian companies providing Linux products and services may soon have to pay up to $A5000 a year to licence the operating system name, if the patents agency IP Australia grants a trademark application it is reviewing.

About 90 companies with products, services or websites containing the word "Linux" recently received letters of demand from Perth lawyer Jeremy Malcolm.

Acting for user group Linux Australia Inc, he asks recipients to sign statements saying their use of the word is subject to the group's licence agreement, which has fees of $A200 to $A5000 under a successful trademark application. Those using the term in a descriptive sense do not have to pay, he says.

"It is your legal responsibility to obtain a licence from the Linux Mark Institute before you are allowed to use the word 'Linux' as part of your product or service name or brand," Mr Malcolm wrote to companies.

User group president Jonathan Oxer says the trademark application is to protect the name from abuse. "At this point, the exercise is not about extracting fees from people," he says. "It's an extremely small number of people that are likely to have to licence it. It's about establishing the trademark. This is the reality of working in the commercial world that we're in now."

Reactions ranged from support to confusion.

"I suspected it was a scam, so I posted the message (to a local mailing list) to find out more," says Richard Ham, a Sunshine Coast IT consultant whose ventures include his EdIT Counsel consultancy and Linux-related website http://linuxhowtos.net/">linuxhowtos.net.

Investigations relieved Mr Ham's concerns, but not everyone is so understanding.

"There's been a mixture of positive support and paranoia, and that's kind of what I expected," says Mr Malcolm, who was engaged in a celebrated 2002 anti-spamming case against Perth company T3.

The trademark action emerged after a 2003 conflict in which an Adelaide Linux consultancy called itself Linux Australia Pty Ltd. The user group, in operation for years, took exception to the name's similarity and blocked the application through IP Australia. The consultancy changed its name to OpenEra but the incident highlighted that the Linux name was in legal limbo because it was unregistered.

The user group acted to become an agent for the Linux Mark Institute, a US-based organisation created in 2002 to police use of Linux creator Linus Torvalds' trademark after he became concerned about a website operator selling pornography through http://linuxchix.com/">linuxchix.com.

The Australian trademark application was lodged with the trademarks office on January 19 last year. It has an acceptance due date of September 7.

In the weeks leading to that date, Mr Malcolm hopes to build momentum for the initiative so the trademark will be granted to Mr Torvalds, with the user group monitoring use in Australia.

About a dozen letters have been returned and Mr Malcolm is in talks with IP Australia over whether that is enough.

"I'm hopeful that just to show that we've got positive responses from some of the most important users of Linux out there will be enough to convince IP Australia to grant the trademark," he says.

OpenEra, whose inadvertent naming conflict with the user group started the process, got its letter last week and "we'll be signing it", says managing director Hosi Stankovic.

"We have the legacy of (the dispute) and all the hate mails but we don't really have any objections to (the user group) registering the name," he says.

"We just want a trademark and to have it safe to trade with."

Re:Full article for the lazy

[Anonymous Coward]

"And if a developer here drops some open source code in our project, then we have to give all the source away...."

Ok I am confused here. You have just contradicted yourself in one sentence. Your project needs a piece of code that exists under an open licence. But you might have to give away the rest of your code because of the nature of the open licence. Now tell me this, if open source did not exist then where would you get the necessary code in a closed source world? The only reason you got to see the code you needed was because it was open otherwise it would exist in binary form only. It seems to me your team either lacks talent or is just plain lazy.

At least in the MS world, you know where you stand...

You don't even know where you stand to begin with. Bottom line is that you wat to steal code but the licence prohibits you from doing so.

Lazy fuck.

Re:Doesn't seem to be in the spirit of openness

[scum-e-bag]

What does this Austrailian hope to gain? Really, they may gain a few thousand or hundred thousand dollars, but I imagine that this will not exactly engender "good will" from the "victims."

RTFA. These sort of directives come from linus humself. They are there to stop people abusing the word linux. An example in TFA was a porn site called linuxchix.com which caused some concern. These sort of sites tend to allow the watering down of the name linux. I certainly can't see MS allowing a site called microsoftporn.com to continue for a long time.

Claim: LINUS supports it

[Barbarian]

This article, Suspicions fade over Linux trademark move on ZDNet Australia that I dug up claims that, "letters sent out by a lawyer acting on behalf of Linus Torvalds are part of a legitimate process to ensure the open source software's creator maintains control of the 'Linux' trademark."

Can someone please get LINUS to verify this preposterous claim? I would not be surprised if Linux Australia is not a legitimate user group at all.

Re:Claim: LINUS supports it

[zsau]

linux.org.au has been a registered domain name for some years. Back before broadband, I found the supplier for my first Linux CD, Red Hat 5.1 when it was fresh, through it. (I think the CDs cost about $10, which took me a while to save up for. I was in year 7 or 8 at the time :)

The webpage looks drastically different, though, and it's possible that over the years the membership has changed so that it's no longer there for Linux users, but there to extort the name. I don't really know what my opinion should be.

Re:Claim: LINUS supports it

[hypatia]

Linux Australia is the group organising the big linux.conf.au conference each year. (Both Linus and /. editors have attended in the past...)

They are currently in the process of setting themselves up as the group to talk to if you want to talk to FOSS volunteers in Australia. This is pretty much a self-appointed role for them, but they have put a lot of effort into communicating with the LUGs all over the country and they have deeper pockets and a higher profile than the LUGs due to organising the region's major FOSS conference, so the LUGs are, as far as I know, consenting. Most Linux Australia people are pretty active in their own LUG: the Sydney and Perth groups have a great deal of overlap with Linux Australia. LA is also open membership and most conference attendees do end up joining (it's free with the conference admission) so a reasonable chunk of FOSS developers in Australia have voting rights. Rusty Russell and Andrew Tridgell have both been involved to varying degrees.

So they are a legitimate user group, or meta-user group, as much as any other LUG in Australia. It's in their role as the umbrella of Linux in Australia that they seem to have asked Malcolm to act to shore up Linus's claim to "Linux" in Australia, currently in doubt because so many businesses already use the word.

Accounthttp://www.smh.com.au/news/next/linux-trade

[excelblue]

Created an account on there for all of you to use: Username: slshdt0816 Password: slashdot

explanation

[ehaggis]

There is a letter from the lawyer at http://www.ilaw.com.au/linuxfaq.html. It spells out the intent of the letter a bit better than the articles.

Evidently it was a poorly written letter in the 1st place. Some lawyer.

scammer

[timmarhy]

he is just attempting to scam people, there is a great different between selling a IT product called "linux something" and linuxchix.com. the spirit of linuxmark is to prevent the misuse of the linux name in cases such as linuxchix.com, so that it's legitimate use won't be ruined. money has nothing to do with this. this guy is a con artist.

Registration NOT required...

[SJ]

If you remove the 'oneclick' argument from the URL.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/next/linux-trademark-pr otection-comes-at-a-cost-for-some/2005/08/15/11239 57995044.html

That's not so bad...

[Pedrito]

He's not charging all that much for use of the trademark. I don't usually see monetary figures in hex, though. I guess that's just a Linus thing. But $41,472 - $42,240 seems pretty reasonable.

Until Linus himself endorses this....

[Generalisimo Zang]

Until Linus himself comments on this, I'm going to have to assume that this whole thing is a scam, and that their claiming to be acting as "agents of Linus Torvalds" is simply a lie.

It looks like a scam, sounds like a scam, and is spearheaded by a guy who's previous internet comments make him look like a loon.

I seriously doubt that this is in any way legit. Seems like a SCO-like scam, with less finesse and even less of the veneer of respectibility than the SCO scam.

Re:Until Linus himself endorses this....

[Bandraginus]

Umm.. well, since Linus is named as the owner of this trademark application, I'd say that it DOES have his blessing. Bad choice of lawyers, maybe, but it appears to be legit nonetheless.

You Are Lying About a Liar

[Doc Ruby]

Your FAQ is from the organization this quack lawyer represents, in his attempt to extort A$thousands from people using the Linux trademark appropriately. Who cares what their answers are? Why are you defending this creep, and his obvious ploy to cash in on the brand equity created by Torvalds and everyone else actually contributing to "Linux"?

Necessary evil

[Bandraginus]

Guys, the Slashdot summary is a little misleading. The group "Linux Australia Inc" is NOT applying for the trademark.

I work at the patent office here in Australia and so I looked it up. The details of the trademark are:

Trade Mark : 985197
Type of Mark: Word
Acceptance Due: 07-SEP-2005
Class/es: 9, 16, 42
Owner/s: Linus Torvalds
                    GPO Box 4788
                    SYDNEY,2071,NSW
                    AUSTRALIA

This actually seems to be a genuine attempt at preventing malicious abuse of the Linux name.

So I'm a bit ambivalent about this trademark. On one hand it goes against the spirit of open-ness. On the other hand I can think of numerous examples where I would want this enforced (eg, it protects the name from abuse by certain world-dominating-software-companies who may have an interest in dirtying the name).

I'm no fan of patents in IT, but this seems like a necessary evil to me.

Sad reflection of the times we live in... :(

Re:Necessary evil

[jonoxer]

Thanks for pointing out the facts of this application! It looks like a lot of people are getting very upset for no particular reason, which is dissappointing.

This trademark application is being done to ensure that Linus has control of use of the "Linux" trademark in Australia. It's *not* a money-grabbing exercise by a lone scam artist. For reference, the relevant players are:

LMI (Linux Mark Institute) which was created as an organisation to administer the "Linux" trademark on behalf of Linus.

Linux Australia, the national representative body for Linux users and developers in Australia which is acting on behalf of LMI to secure the trademark in Australia for Linus.

Jeremy Malcolm, who is Linux Australia's legal counsel and has been working for more than a year to shepherd the application through IP Australia and despite the claims of previous posts is *not* a scientologist loon, but rather the victim of a character assassination attempt by a certain individual who for several years has been mischaracterising him online.

One other thing that needs clearing up is that trademarks are *not* patents! They are totally different things. Many earlier posts have made ridiculous statements about the GPL protecting the name "Linux" and generally confusing the two.

Re:Necessary evil

[zsau]

Checking the GPO Box, it seems it's owned by Linux Australia, Inc., not the Linus Torvalds we know and feel ambivalent about.

Does that mean anything? I, for one, don't know.

Re:Necessary evil

[Bandraginus]

Yeah, you make a very good point. The service address (Jeremy Malcolm) doesn't matter so much. That's pretty standard for a trademark application. The service is merely the legal agent acting on behalf of the owner(s). For example, the word "Linuxworld" is also trademarked:

Owner/s: International Data Group Inc.
            5 Speen Street,
            Framingham,
            Massachusetts 01701,
            UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Address for Service: Lord & Company
            4 Douro Place
            WEST PERTH
            6005,WA

However, what is interesting is the address given for Linus himself. As in the example above, there's no reason why Linus' US mailing address can't be provided. I'm not sure why Linux Australia's address is used, and not the address for Linux Mark or Linus himself.

Keep in mind that they can't falsify information on the trademark application, so there has to be some kind of legal relationship between Linux Australia Inc and Linus.

Of course, IANAIPL (IP lawyer).

Re:parent is a troll

[tomhudson]

You're right, of course. The ilaw site is owned by the same guy sending the letters:

whois ilaw.com.au
Domain Name: ilaw.com.au
Last Modified: 19-Jul-2004 17:33:48 UTC
Registrar ID: R00011-AR
Registrar Name: Namescout
Status: CLIENTUPDATEPROHIBITED

Registrant: NetCafe Services Pty Ltd
Registrant ID: OTHER 083 643 556

Registrant ROID: C0874417-AR
Registrant Contact Name: Mr Jeremy Mark Malcolm
Registrant Email: jeremy@malcolm.wattle.id.au

Tech ID: C1203670-AR
Tech Name: Jeremy Malcolm
Tech Email: jeremy@malcolm.wattle.id.au

Name Server: ns.terminus.net.au
Name Server IP: 203.25.143.1
Name Server: twobluedots.com.au
Name Server IP: 203.59.228.114

You'd think that people posting on slashdot would know how to do a whois ...

ilaw is another one of his scams to try to make money off other peoples work:

You can ask a question on any topic related to Australian law, and for only $50 a qualified iLaw consultant in your locality will contact you with the answer. Try it now!

Of course, when I tried to post this question

go fuck yourself (see slashdot for more info)

for some reason, it didn't go through :-)

Re:Doesn't seem to be in the spirit of openness

[Chicks_Hate_Me]

Work in progress?

DOMAIN: MICROSOFTPORN.COM

RSP: Transip B.V.
URL: http://www.transip.nl/

created-date: 2005-08-08
updated-date: 2005-08-08
registration-expiration-date: 2006-08-08

owner-contact: P-JES120
owner-organization: Schutte, j
owner-fname: J
owner-lname: Schutte
owner-street: Veenlustplein 15
owner-city: Veendam
owner-zip: 9641 MG
owner-country: NL
owner-phone: +31598633597
owner-email: aan.michel@planet.nl

Re:Let's just have him shot

[tomhudson]

Why not just put them all in a room and have them sit through a year's worth of lectures from RMS.

1. Darl "Linux contains code stoen from us" McBride and Co.
2. Jeff "I want to buy the linux kernel for $50,000.00" Merkey
3. Jeremy "the Linux kernel already infringes various software patents" Malcolm (the quack lawyer pushing this scheme)

Any other candidates?

Re:Doesn't seem to be in the spirit of openness

[jred]

Hey! What's the idea? linuxchix.com isn't a pr0n site!!!1!!

Get my hopes up for nothing. I've got points & I'm modding you "-1 Misleading"...

Re:parent is a troll

[JJahn]

Duh...that's not a question! Try something like "go fuck yourself?" and then it will go through fine.

Re:Let's just have him shot

[rpresser]

Funny thing ... everyone respects RMS, or claims to, yet he's very frequently called upon as a punishment...

Re:parent is a troll

[ebuck]

Funny,

I could tell that it was from the same "organization" without even performing the whois.

Get used to reading weasel, and phrases like "We only exercise the trademark rights that Linux has authorized us to represent" read a lot like "We don't have any right to represent Linux because otherwise we would state up front exactly what Linux has authorized us to do."

Lawyers never beat around the bush when they are on the winning side.

Linus

[appavi]

Linux Trademark owned by Linus
See Slashdot post
http://slashdot.org/articles/00/01/19/0828245.shtm l

My company got the letter

[alexyap]

I run a small consulting company that had the words Linux mentioned in several places on the Website. I'm one of those who got the email letter from Jeremy. Anyway, my blog below provides a brief summary.

http://www.livelogcity.com/users/penguinman/269.ht ml

Maybe we need a new non-trademarked word to refer to Linux in Australia, so that small companies like mine can still refer to this OS without having to worry about paying no trademark license. Maybe we can all put Tux icon in place of the word Linux.

Re:My company got the letter

[alexyap]

Some background info. When I first received the letter, I was NOT using the word Linux as part of my company name. Not even my product/service name. My Website just stated that my Open source product runs on Linux and I can help setup Linux servers to run my product. My product doesn't even sound remotely similar to Linux.

Looked that even that level of usage was sufficient to attract Jeremy's attention, hence I got the letter.

Anyway, I've since removed the word Linux from my Website.

Using Tux is fine according to its creator Larry Ewing. On his Web site, he said:

"Feel free to do whatever you see fit with the images, you are encouraged to integrate them into other designs that fit your need."

and

"Permission to use and/or modify this image is granted provided you acknowledge me lewing@isc.tamu.edu and The GIMP if someone asks."

Re:My company got the letter

[jonoxer]

Maybe we can all put Tux icon in place of the word Linux

Ahhhh! This sort of ridiculous statement makes me want to scream! Yes, you can use the Tux icon in fair and reasonable ways because it's protected by copyright and Larry is nice enough to use his rights WRT the copyright to allow people to use it appropriately. But that's *exactly* what the trademark action is also trying to achieve for the term "Linux"! At present it's not a trademark in Australia. This action is to make sure the trademark is controlled by Linus, and do you think he's going to be unreasonable about what people are allowed to do with it? Of course not! On the other hand, what do you think would happen if the trademark was allowed to fall into the hands of a commercial entity with a vested interest? Hmm, scary thought indeed.

Effectively you're saying "I'm not going to use this term because it's going to be under Linus' control through trademark law, so I'll use this image instead because it's under Larry's control under copyright law."

Re:the summary is 100% lies

[fuzza]

THANK YOU... I was hoping someone was going to post that soon.

An FAQ for the /. hordes...

• Why are you sending letters of demand?
  We're not... the letter (and the email body which contained the first paragraph) specifically state "This is not a letter of demand, but rather a request for your assistance..."
• $5000? WTF?
  Don't look at us, that's the pricing set by the Linux Mark Institute (LMI) and they say that most uses are no more than $500. What's more, the license only covers direct uses of the name (like in a business name) not descriptive uses like "We sell Linux CDs". In any event, that's all down the road, and we're not likely to be the ones pursuing it anyway (that's LMI's job). Don't get your panties in a knot.
• Isn't "Linux" already a registered trademark elsewhere? Doesn't it cover Australia by default?
  No, it doesn't. That's what we're trying to do, get it registered for Linus here.
• Do you really represent Linus/LMI/foo?
  Yes, really. Feel free to check with Linux Australia Inc, LMI, whoever. I'm not sure if Linus personally knows of our efforts, but Jon "maddog" Hall (President of OSDL I believe) certainly does.
• It still smells bogus.
  Andrew Cowie (one of the Linux Australia board members) has written an excellent summary in his blog. Well worth the read.

And in case you think I'm talking out of my rear, I work for Jeremy (on the IT side, IANAL) and was the one who "physically" sent out the 90 emails.

Re:the summary is 100% lies

[ozmanjusri]

It's not Gotterdammerung, it's not even a baby apocalypse. It's just a major overreaction by a few people. The best place to read about it is Andrew Cowie's blog http://research.operationaldynamics.com/blogs/andr ew/boards/linux-aus/linux-trademark-in-aus.html. That'll give you a clearer idea of what this is all about, but to quote;

The counsel that Linux Australia instructed, a jovial fellow (who also is a right proper geek) named Jeremy Malcolm, has been toiling away at this for some time now. He recently resolved some outstanding confusion (mostly just crossed wires between all the unpaid volunteers involved on various sides of whichever your favourite ocean is), and is putting together the final pieces of the puzzle that will resolve the issue properly. Part of that was a sending a letter to various people around the country who might happen to be using Linux professionally, asking them to indicate their knowledge of the international trademark and their support of it.

Other interesting links;
http://www.linuxmark.org/
http://builderau.com.au/program/work/soa/Suspicion s_fade_over_Linux_trademark_move/0,39024650,392021 41,00.htm

Re:Er, uh - Not quite

[Doc Ruby]

I'd like to see documentation of that case. Because, as is well known, truth is defense against libel/slander charges. Of course, a better lawyer can be proof against justice, but I'll take my chances with this Slashnutter. I've got plenty of basis to impugn this false, wrong twit - especially when they start threatening that someone else, even worse than they, is going to sue me.

Re:the summary is 100% lies

[LibrePensador]

Jon "maddog" Hall is the president of Linux International, not of OSDL. The CEO of OSDL is Stuart Cohen.

Given that you cannot get the basic facts right on your FAP, I seriously doubt that you represent who you claim to represent and I seriously doubt that Linux, Cohen or Jon "maddog" Hall approve, condone or endorse your efforts.

Legit claim

[mikey_d]

Linux Australia is getting Jeremy Malcolm to secure the use of the trademark "Linux" for use in Australia on behalf of Linus Torvalds via the Linux Mark Institute.

The reason is that unscrupulous operators have been abusing the Linux trademark, and so Linux Australia decided to persue securing it on behalf of Linus. (aka doing the right thing)

The T's and C's (i.e. charging for use of the trademark Linux in Australia) are no different from those identified in the Linus-approved Linux Mark Institute. But note, that Jeremy Malcolm's notice is NOT asking for money, just saying that in the future you may be asked to licence the trademark if you sell a product that is levereging the Linux trademark. This is a key point in trademark law - to secure the trademark in the first place to stop some companies from doing the wrong thing.

See Jon Oxer's blog post on the topic (he's Linux Australia's president).

Linux Australia's explanation

[hypatia]

The president of Linux Australia (which is, btw, kind of an umbrella group for Australian LUGs and which manages the linux.conf.au conference), said this in his blog:

There'll be a bit of an update about this soon by someone more knowledgeable than myself, but in the meantime the important thing to know is that the email is part of the process that LMI (Linux Mark Institute) has been undertaking to secure the trademark to the word "Linux". LMI is acting on behalf of Linus Torvalds to establish and protect the Linux trademark in various jurisdictions around the world, and has enlisted the assistance of local organisations within those jurisdictions to act as local representatives. Linux Australia has been cooperating with LMI to assist with securing the trademark in Australia.

Jeremy Malcolm has also published a FAQ, including the following:

What was the purpose of your letter?
There are many businesses in Australia that are using the word "Linux" as part of their operations. IP Australia, our trade mark registrar, knows this, and considers it an obstacle for the success of Linus Torvalds' application to register "Linux" as a trade mark here. We need to show IP Australia that although a lot of people may be using "Linux" in a trade mark context, they are doing so under licence of Linus (or strictly, under sub-licence from LMI).

Why was I sent the letter?
The letter was sent to anyone whom it appeared might have been using the word "Linux", or some derivative of that word, in a trade mark context.

But I'm not using it in a trade mark context!
That's good to know. Thanks, and sorry for any inconvenience.

But you're asking me for money!
No I'm not. You might be required to licence the mark in the future if you are using the Linux mark in a trade mark context for your business, but I have no instructions, and don't anticipate receiving any, to pursue you to take out such a licence.

PANIC NOT., THERES MORE TO THE STORY!!!

[sg_oneill]

Ok. Jeremy is my Lawyer, and folks actually need to understand he's a bloody good guy who helped out a community journalism group I'm involved with free of charge once because , well we where poor asses and he's got a heart.

Jeremy is doing this as LINUS's rep here so as to assert that the trademark application is REAL, so as to stop unsrupulous companies abusing the name "Linux" or trying to trademark it.

I dont know if they intend to collect on the money, my suspicion is that its pretty damn negotiable. Its just to assert that linus's trademark is a real one.

I don't know what the deal is with Jeremys Scientology suite was. I know he stepped down from the EFA over it, which was the ethical thing to do. Either way, I doubt Jeremy can answer that concern for you because of the lawyer/client confidentiality thing. I guess everyone has a black -spot in the history.

[b]THERES ALWAYS MORE TO THE STORY THAN MEETS THE EYE[/b]

Jeremy is a geek. A raging geek. He's proud of it too. He gives a damn about linux, and you can be assured this is not some SCO type grab.

Re:PANIC NOT., THERES MORE TO THE STORY!!!

[badfish99]

If they don't intend to collect the money, why not set the price at $0.01? Then people who were scared into paying wouldn't feel so bad about it.
If the price list says $5000, it looks as though they actually expect to collect thousands of dollars, even if they give everyone a discount. And if there are lawers involved, they would have to collect a good bit of money to pay their fees. Even geeky lawyers expect to be paid. Or is Jeremy doing this for free too?

Re:PANIC NOT., THERES MORE TO THE STORY!!!

[inflex]

I received the letter in /email/ as well - what bothers me is that none of my products or service have linux used in their names, /none/. I know that the various projects I have OpenSourced will run in linux but that's the extent of it.

The letter was sent out in the evening and quite honestly is immediately ranked as spam/scam in my eyes such to the point where I started hunting around for a way to contact Linus or a group representing Linus to inform him of this.

In the end I wrote back a simple email saying that we didn't use Linux in our product names (why limit ourselves to linux when there's so many other OS's too).

If the guy wanted to be taken seriously it should have been a mailout using the registered postal service.

Looks like this was really a bit of a fishing expedition to me.

Re:PANIC NOT., THERES MORE TO THE STORY!!!

[Alan Cox]

Well given the name Linux was invented by a third party, and the prior use I hope the mark gets thrown out. And if he's your lawyer you should be ashamed.

We had a similar scan in the EU (Austria primarily) of someone making the same kind of "for the good of Linux' type claims. That one was dealt with in the same way I hope this is.. crushed underfoot.

Re:PANIC NOT., THERES MORE TO THE STORY!!!

[badfish99]

No it doesn't. They're not charging anyone to use Linux.
In the US, at least, the word BSD is a trademark (look at bsd.org) so Berkeley Software Design, Inc would be equally entitled to ask for money like this.

Re:PANIC NOT., THERES MORE TO THE STORY!!!

[schon]

Umm, you *do* realize who you're correcting, right?

Re:PANIC NOT., THERES MORE TO THE STORY!!!

[sg_oneill]

Alan, with deference to you and all, he's acting for Linux mark. You know. The trust thingee linus entrusted the his Linux Trademark to. But you should know that right?

The whole deal has to do with Linux australia, acting for Linux Mark, filed to register the trademark to stop unscrupulous mobs claiming it or whatever. The judge has noted other companies are already using it.

So the letter went out to companies with linux in the name to just simply state for them that they are using the name under licence from Linus Torvalds via Linux Mark/Linux Australia.

Its possible a figure has to be attached to it to make it a real deal.

Somewhere in the mess, this has all gotten mushed up in the madness of the press.

Believe me Alan, Jeremy is well known in the Aust Open Source scene. This isnt a scam, and privately between you and me (and the rest of slashdot), I'd take a wager he wont follow thru on the bill. Because thats not actually what this is about.

he didn't when he represented me (being that I was unemployed at the time).

linuxchix.com

[michaeldot]

If I understand correctly, Linus first set up "Linux" as a trademark so that he could stop a site called "linuxchix.com."

I'm curious if a company like Apple would be able to stop an (as yet non-existent) site named "ipodchix.com" given that there are a ton of "iPod" sites that use the iPod trademark: "ipodhacks.com", "ipodsync.com", "ipod-fun.de", "ipod-dj.com", "ipod-shop.co.uk", "ipod-warehouse.com.au", "ipod-conga.com", etc, etc. And if they can, would they?

Does this mean that the open source movement is actually more protective of its associations and (as the story article suggests) litigious when it comes to this matter than a corporation?

(By the way, if anyone is thinking of setting up ipodchix.com just to see what happens, here are some (mostly work safe) pictures to get started. Purely in the interests of trademark research of course!)

http://www.eluid.org/images/misc/iPod1.jpg
http://www.eluid.org/images/misc/iPod2.jpg

Re:Let's just have him shot

[HuguesT]

Well I sat through a Chomsky lecture once, and it was very entertaining. He says the most horrid and challenging things with total equanimity, then back them up with long lists of facts. He is a great public speaker and must be a difficult person to challenge in a public debate. If you search on MIT's website you'll find a few of his lectures available for download.

Similarly if you haven't sat through the standard RMS spiel on Free Software then you've missed something. RMS may not the best public speaker but he speaks simply, clearly and visibly believes what he is talking about.

The common point of these two people is that most people come out of these lectures at least challenged by their viewpoint. It is not at all the sort of thing one regularly hears on prime-time television.

All the best.

Old news indeed

[afcowie]

Given how people completely went off their heads in here, that this process has been going on for well over a year, and, as others have pointed out, there was ample press coverage at the time, I can't imagine that anything else that anyone says is going to dramatically improve the situation.

But, for what it's worth, I posted a rather conversational piece about this in my blog a couple weeks ago that a few people around and about seemed to think explained the situation reasonably. So, for anyone who is still reading this thread, here you go: Linux Trademark In Australia.

AfC

But PAY for it?!?

[vhogemann]

Ok, but why charge for the use?

I mean, keep the use free of charge, but require anyone using the word "Linux" to send a copy of their work to be certified, or something... but don't charge for it!

Because, if I want to hack Linux and put inside my clockwatch... and them make it avaliable on my website under the name of WatchLinux for FREE, I wont want to pay someone to use the trademark... Hell, I'd rather make a WatchNetBSD or something!