Am I the only one who notices the irony of slapping a big horsey TM on an Open Source logo?
That aside, adding a (tm) to anything is usually a knee-jerk reaction of inexperienced designers and naive clients who dictate that the trademark be added because 1) they think it entitles them to sue people, 2) it makes the logo "look official," 3) "everyone else does it," 4) "it will scare people away from using it, or 5) "our lawyers said we need it."
Even a cursory search into trademark law reveals that you don't need to (tm) something for it to be trademarked or copyrighted. The mere act of publishing work (e.g., posting for public view) establishes trademark rights and allows you to file a lawsuit if your rights are infringed. You don't need to file anything with the government, either. Just do your homework and you'll be fine.
The only time a (tm) helps is in court, to protect against the defense of "I didn't know it was trademarked."
But just imagine if the OSI started suing Web sites for infringing on their copyrights. They'd become a laughingstock overnight.
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Am I the only one who notices the irony of slapping a big horsey TM on an Open Source logo?
That aside, adding a (tm) to anything is usually a knee-jerk reaction of inexperienced designers and naive clients who dictate that the trademark be added because 1) they think it entitles them to sue people, 2) it makes the logo "look official," 3) "everyone else does it," 4) "it will scare people away from using it, or 5) "our lawyers said we need it." Even a cursory search into trademark law reveals that you don't need to (tm) something for it to be trademarked or copyrighted. The mere act of publishing work (e.g., posting for public view) establishes trademark rights and allows you to file a lawsuit if your rights are infringed. You don't need to file anything with the government, either. Just do your homework and you'll be fine.
The only time a (tm) helps is in court, to protect against the defense of "I didn't know it was trademarked."
But just imagine if the OSI started suing Web sites for infringing on their copyrights. They'd become a laughingstock overnight.