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Linux Trademark Rejected in Australia
daria42 writes "Linus Torvalds' bid to have the word 'Linux' trademarked in Australia has failed, with the local intellectual property regulator sending his lawyer a vitriolic letter deriding efforts to provide evidence the trademark application was legitimate. In the letter, the regulator points out that information from Wikipedia and Google used by the lawyer to support the trademark application is simply not effective in making the case for a trademark to be registered."
The rejection may be on shaky grounds, but the letter was hardly vitriolic. It is firm, and laid out the causes for rejection in a clear manner (caveat : IANAL).
Anyway, using wikipedia and google to bolster your application may be stretching it a bit...but hey what do I know
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
that they were using Wikipedia and Google to prove the references. They are good for us people, but in a court.......no way !!
This will mean that the Aussie LUGs will need to keep an eye out for slander and libel, and act.
No, this will mean that they can't act. Anyone is free to write their own OS, call it Linux and then either sell it on or complain loudly about how demonstrably buggy Linux is.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
This passage here looks like the lawyer failed to do his job properly: It is not clear from the declaration in what way Mr Jeremy Malcolm is authorised and qualified to make this declaration on behalf of Mr Linus Torvalds. It should be a routine task to provide documentation that satisfactorily answers that question before it's even asked. Probably a document with Linus' signature (and some official confirmation of its authenticity, such as by a notary public along with a so-called apostille) would have done the job.
I've opened the PDF file of the IP Australia letter, and the examiner says that the decision could be reconsidered on the basis of better evidence. That means some more effort will have to be put into this than printing out a Wikipedia article and a few pages of Google search results. A key question will be "the date when use of the trade mark commenced".
The article was poor, but the summary on /. was retarded. It didn't took a bad article, misunderstood it, spun it in a way seemingly designed to misdirect attention, and failed to convey the important information.
The bottom line is - Linus (or possibly an Australian LUG, the article wasn't entirely clear) was afraid that someone might trademark Linux and do Bad Things with it. So they initiated an attempt to trademark it for themselves, and the relevent authority told them not to be silly, the term was clearly generic.
This is great. First, it's a sign of sanity - all too rare in government bodies in charge of intellectual property protection. Second - it's ten times better for the term to be un-trademarkable than for it to be trademarked, even in the hands of someone theoretically trustworthy.
So, to sum up: 1) You can't trademark the term Linux in Australia. 2) This is a good thing.
Actually, that smells more like incompetent lawyer than bad government agency. The Australian trademark mob does have a bit of a reputation for being quite firm with registrations - they must be genuine and proper and not half-assed. Any trademark lawyer worth his salt here would know that, and draw up a proper application.
If my students cite Google and Wikipedia as primary sources of reference in the academic papers they submit to me, they fail, and I send them back for a re-write (at their option). Same should apply for trademark applications. What sort of half baked cowboy is this guy?
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Actually, I disagree. I think that this is a huge opening for a competent trademark lawyer to leap in and snap up the term before the (apparent) rightful owner gets its act together and submit a proper trademark application.
I wouldn't look upon this as 'good' or 'safe', I'm thinking dangerous situation.
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
The editors sole job here is to judge which submissions, usually by mentioning Microsoft and/or OSS, will incite 'debate' - i.e. receive a lot of posts, supporting advertising revenue.
Slashdot is over...
Businesses are free to set their own prices. There is no fraud going on here; it is not illegal to make a big profit. It is not government's job to set prices or profit margins. If you think the current prices of refined oil in Australia are too high, please tell us of your wonderful supplier that is willing and able to supply oil for a lower price. Better yet, contact them and sell the oil yourself, and you will be able to make a profit.
Oh, sorry. I forgot. In order to write a CD you have to make sure that Windows is pre-installed with all the drivers, and have paid royally through the nose for it.
Just to recap:
(1) install Windows. OK if your machine is of a boring, "approved" spec (yes, you have to be approved). God help you if you decide to combine things that might be helpful to you but not to the supplier. Or if you decide to change your motherboard later, but that's a far fetched assumption because your hardware will never expire or need upgrading). Oh, did you remember to ask for media when you got it pre-installed or did the shop 'forgot' to mention that that could be helpful in re-install. No? Well, you'll just have to buy a new copy then, no OEM discount there and don't even think about copying - I wholly agree that you should NEVER, EVER copy Windows - just for a different reason (it's a waste of decent media, and I advocate staying completely legal in every case).
(2) find those pesky drivers for your drive. If you're re-installing and have lost the companion CD, sorry, you'll have to download it again. As long as you can get any kind of connection - do your USB/modem/NIC drivers work?
(3) find some usable software. You may have to go and buy it, and if it was software you got with a previous drive you may find that it won't work with your new, shiny drive. But we've covered hardware upgrades already.
Interestingly enough, I've found drivers only to be an issue with the very latest and greatest kit, and even that problem is diminishing. If I rip-n-replace motherboard, CPU or most other hardware the worst I get from Linux is a warning that a component may not work as expected but it will STILL boot to a point where I can do something about it. If not, I can cold boot off a CD or DVD and still work with my data. Oh, and sudden power loss doesn't give me that much hassle either - any Linux box runs a journalling file system these days. There appears to be a certain inevitability for losss of data once NTFS gets confused. But hey, that's all part of that great Windows user experience. That, and the vast money sucking vortex near your wallet. It's more like a tax than you realise: you don't get much benefit from the tax you pay either.
Amazingly, I manage to list all that without mentioning once that other little problem you may have. How up to date is your anti-virus and anti-spyware software? Just wondering.
I would have agreed with you a couple of years ago where a GUI was simply a good way to get more command lines on Unix. That was then, but I can imagine that as a Windows user you're not quite used to the kind of pace that Open Source innovation has developed. After all, you don't see much progress on Windows these days.
Oh, and check on your statistics. It's not 1%. Maybe it's that which is bothering you..
= XX =
Windows: because other lemmings use it.
Anyway, using wikipedia and google to bolster your application may be stretching it a bit...but hey what do I know
Wikipedia is an interesting concept, but why oh why do people insist on treating it as some kind of authoritative source?? (Not directed at you, efuseekay)
Genuine authoritative sources are reviewed and re-reviewed by individuals whose credentials are verified, etc. to ensure they know the topic at hand. Think of the requirements for an expert witness, if that helps; pay particular attention to Rules 701 and 702*. Nutshell version: anyone - particularly a specialist in a given field - must be able to support and corroborate claims of deep and/or specialized knowledge before presenting such knowledge in court.
Compare this to Wikipedia: anyone with Internet access can submit [mis]information with relative ease. Yes, glaring omissions will probably be rectified shortly, but does that help the person who viewed an erroneous page before the correction was made?
(* IANAL, but have done a reasonable amount of work in this area.)
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Price fixing may be illegal, but it is nevertheless the way the world works. If you don't like it, you'd better act yourself because the politician you elected isn't going to.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
If someone were to talk about how it's annoying that gravity pulls things down, and you said "That's the way the world works", I'd agree. But the way our civilization works is the sum total of how we make it work, it's all artifical and built the way we want it to be. If you just take it the way others are making it to be, it's your loss. I tend to try complaining and trying to change things if they don't suit me.
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
but in the end, for most people, including myself, it's more a matter of convenience than anything else, and so the shortest, easy to pronounce version, plain "Linux", won.
...but on the other hand: if anyone can begin to clean up this ambiguity, its him and he seems to have no interest in it. Its negligent of him.
When I think about it, I don't really have a problem with renaming GNU against stallman's wishes. (I know well how awkward "GNU/linux" is and how much "linux" kicks its ass as a word)
My problem is with the ambiguity: If linux is the whole sh-bang then LBT isn't its writer and it began in the 80's as the GNU system.
I'll put it another way. The statements: a) linux was written by LBT. and b) linux contains GNU code. are mutually contradictory. This shows there are at least 2 definitions. If the community is going to go with definition B then it should stick with that because the switching back and forth is really screwing GNU.
Linus never really took side in that debate.
You do have a point there. He didn't take part in the debate himself.