"Open Source" Not Trademarked After All?

Mike_Miller writes "According to a ZDNet Article, the term "Open Source" is not, and never has been, trademarked. Quote: "The term has never been a registered trademark, and it's no longer even pending registration." " Oh dear. Update: 06/15 02:30 by CT : ESR wrote in to say "Hey, chill, everybody. OSI was planning to issue a statement about this matter after our Wednesday board meeting (despite some of the rumors going around, we do operate by consensus; this slows us down a bit sometimes). So if you'll wait a bit, all will be made clear. In the mean time: don't panic!"

Comments

A grain of salt?

[Jeff Monks]

It's not clear where this ZD guy got his information, but if it was straight from the USPTO's web page, it may not be the most current information. According to the USPTO's disclaimer page, the web database could be quite out of date:

Currency of the Web Database

• The PTO?s trademark data on the Web is updated on a two-month cycle. Coupled with the time required for data production, this means that particular trademarks could be as much as four months out of sequence with the PTO?s internal trademark database.
• The Web database does not include new applications that were filed and entered into the PTO?s internal trademark database during the last two to four months.
• The Web database does not reflect changes made to the PTO?s internal trademark database during the last two to four months.
• The Web database will show applications that registered after its last update as pending applications rather than registrations.
• The Web database will not include edits made to individual records after its last update.

loss of trademark is a loss for us all

[jetson123]

Companies like Microsoft subvert technologies by abusing terminology. Their "transactional" file system isn't really transactional, their "Java" implementation makes few of the safety and security guarantees that Java stands for, and they have already indicated that they think Windows NT is open source--you give them a lot of money and sign your rights away and you get the source. Changing the meaning of words is much simpler and cheaper than actually delivering. A lot of other companies with the moniker "open" in their name also really deliver highly proprietary products.

Trademarks ensure that people get what they think they get, and that's a very good thing in a market where companies benefit enormously from using the latest public-relations-friendly buzzwords.

Of course, there is always the risk that a trademark isn't administered well. But a well-administered trademark on the term "open source" could have ensured that people have a clear understanding of what they get and what they don't get when, say, Apple claims that their release is "open source". It could also have encouraged companies to go the extra mile to make their releases "open source" compliant, rather than having each company's lawyers make things up as they go along.

While a few years ago, the term "open source" was novel enough, I fear it may be too late to rescue the term "open source" as a trademark. And that's a big lost opportunity to anybody interested in open source.