[OSM-talk] Unlicensed use of the logo in iPhone app?
Russ Nelson
nelson at crynwr.com
Wed May 18 07:04:02 BST 2011
john at jfeldredge.com writes:
> 2011/5/17 Russ Nelson <nelson at crynwr.com>:
> > If you don't restrict use, you don't have a trademark
>
> -1, you have a trademark when it is registered. This has nothing to do
> with whether you enforce restricted use or not. You can at any time
> restrict the use.
The key under US law is that you don't own the name by itself -- you
own the reputation of the goods and services, and a trademark is a
tool to protect that. If you allow people to use the trademark on
goods and services whose quality you *don't* control, you don't have a
trademark -- you just have a pretty picture.
The main difference between the US and Europe trademark law is that in
Europe, it is the registration of a trademark that matters, not
use. In the US, use creates ownership; registration just creates the
presumption of ownership; not actual ownership.
I hope this sheds light and not heat.
> > But all is not lost. It's still licensed CC-By-SA, so anybody who uses
> > it has to acknowledge OpenStreetMap.
>
> no, he has to acknowledge the creator, which is Ken Vermette,
Then, just as Steve assigned the trademark to the OSMF, so can Ken
assign copyright in the logo to OSMF.
--
--my blog is at http://blog.russnelson.com
Crynwr supports open source software
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