X-GANYMEDE-MailScanner-SpamScos X-MailScanner-From: k8je@arrl.org Return-Path: K8JE@arrl.org X-OriginalArrivalTime: 25 Jul 2004 19:48:33.0994 (UTC) FILETIME=[5E7E6AA0:01C47280] Andy, Clearly, one must protect a copyright. This is done in the manner indicated in the Board motion. Without protecting it, it indeed can become community property and in fact can be copyrighted by someone else to become their own. Essentially the same is true of trademarks, etc. To digress: One point I found interesting when I first became aware of it is that most large companies have a bank of protected names for products that are not even on the market. These are protected by selling certain quantities of "real-but-not-marketed" product in the trade every few years. In most instances, these are such things as boxes of laundry detergent or tubes of toothpaste, etc. that are packaged using a protected name. The points of sale are selected retail outlets. It sometimes is arranged for a charitable organization to buy the entire shipment at a very favorable price to keep the trade name out of general circulation while still having protected the name by its retail sale. A protected name can be pulled out of mothballs at any time to be used on a new product entry without fear of infringing on any one else's rights. As a result, when many new products come to the public, they bear names that have been in this protected list for many years and may even have been used on a totally different type of product years before. A Rose may not always be a Rose is a Rose. Sneaky and effective people, these corporate attorneys! Jim Weaver, K8JE Director, Great Lakes Division ARRL 5065 Bethany Rd., Mason, OH 45040 Tel.: 513-459-0142; E-mail: k8je@arrl.org ARRL: The reason Amateur Radio Is! MEMBERS: The reason ARRL Is! -----Original Message----- From: Andy Oppel [mailto:andy@andyoppel.com] Sent: Sunday, July 25, 2004 10:49 AM To: arrl-odv Subject: [ARRL-ODV:10990] The Trademark I think it would be useful if we had legal staff publish some guidelines for the use of that trademark. When I worked at Levi Strauss & Co., they had such a document to guide people on what practices had to be followed so that the trademark was not compromised. Apparently, if you publish the trademark without the trademark symbol, the courts can rule that you no longer own it because you did not identify it as a trademark. However, I don't know how much that applies to internal e-mails. At Levi's, we were permitted to write "Levi's" without the symbol in internal documents, but anytime it appeared a product or anything printed externally, the mark had to be there. The other question is whether we trade-marked the name or just the logo for that program. By the way, you'll notice I have avoided naming the program (the one about amateur emergency services). I use Eudora as an e-mail client and have not, as yet, been able to get it to insert the trademark symbol into a note. The ASCII code numbers -- when you hold down the Alt key and type numbers does not work, nor does copying and pasting the symbol from Microsoft Word. SO, if we really have to put that symbol on the name of that program every time we use it (which seems extreme to me), it looks like I can only do so using Microsoft Word attachments. By the way, Levi's had a trademark on that little tab that is sewn into the back pocket of their pants. To protect their trademark, they sometimes made them different sizes and colors, and once in a while did some without the Levi's name on them (just the tab with the trademark symbol). I remember the attorneys telling us that if you always produce the item that is trademarked in exactly the same way, others can skirt the law by slightly altering the item. I'd sure like to hear something more solid on this, particularly on whether they trade-marked the name as well as the logo. -- Andy Oppel, N6AJO Andy Oppel andy@andyoppel.com andy_oppel@earthlink.net andy_oppel@comcast.net