<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<p>Frederik has already given the numbers, just a few comments from
my side:</p>
<ul>
<li>for those registrations that go well, the costs are mainly
fees. They can differ quite substantially from country to
country (that is why we don't have registrations in certain
countries that you would think we should), we have got
reasonably good deals on the counsels costs, it simply starts
getting expensive when we have to start arguing our case, not to
mention the time it costs on our side.<br>
</li>
<li>for a number of countries you could DIY and save some money,
but when things go wrong (and our marks are asking for trouble)
you typically would still need a local lawyer, which then
becomes difficult. <br>
</li>
<li>I wouldn't claim that there is a big grand plan, we are simply
registering in the countries with larger OSM communities and
those with longer term strategic importance, skipping those that
we consider too expensive at this point in time. From a
budgeting point of view we've typically based our projections
on quotes that we've received in the past and have added some
contingency funds for registrations that are still in process.</li>
<li>all in all I would like to point out, that while relatively
speaking we are spending a lot, in absolute numbers it is
absolutely minimal and in total is far less that just one
serious trademark fight would cost.</li>
</ul>
<p>As to why we are doing this: unluckily we have a recent, good
example at hand: you may have noticed that "Mappy Hour" has fallen
in to disuse by our US friends. This is because a corresponding
trademark was registered by a third party and them objecting
against the continued use for OSM related events. We want to
minimize the risk something similar happening to us as far as
possible, and naturally have some clout to stop misuse of the
marks by third parties.<br>
</p>
<p>As I pointed out 2-3 weeks back on the talk list, everybody in
the community could make our life easier and help by not using
plays on and remixes of our marks and in the end save us all time
and money.</p>
<p>Simon<br>
</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Am 09.12.2016 um 23:57 schrieb
Christoph Hormann:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:201612092357.40839.chris_hormann@gmx.de"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">On Friday 09 December 2016, Frederik Ramm wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">
You speak as if the data was somehow there in our records, just not
made public. The reality is that the data isn't even in our records -
all invoices pertaining to trademark registrations land in the same
accounting category and without going back and looking at the
individual invoices we can't even tell how much is paid for fees and
how much for lawyers. I'll try and figure it out for you.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">
Oh - if this is just for me then please don't.
Seriously, i don't really care much about past money spent, my main
motivation to bring this up here is future decisions. So if (and only
if) others also consider this useful and important it might be a good
idea to document this in more detail in the future.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
</body>
</html>