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...

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

[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.

Err, excuse me?

[Famanoran]

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

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.

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... :(