Re: Minutes of the Board meeting 2006/Feb/15

[Bill Haneman <Bill Haneman Sun COM>]

On Mon, 2006-02-27 at 13:26, Dominic Lachowicz wrote:
> On 2/27/06, Bill Haneman <Bill Haneman sun com> wrote:
> >
> > We can't have it both ways.  Either we keep the GNOME trademarks, which
> > requires us to enforce them, or we abandon them.
> 
> That's probably not entirely true.
> 
> The Foundation can probably come up with a set of TM guidelines where
> - in certain circumstances and if certain criteria are met - a TM
> grant automatically and implicitly is issued. In such a scenario, the
> TMs would stil be legally enforcable in cases where those criteria
> aren't met.

Perhaps - this has been discussed on the Board for years.  As I
understand it, the guidance from legal consultations so far has not
helped sketch out such a guideline, and I was under the impression that
there is little, if any, legal precedent for such implicit licensing.

I agree that it is an attractive idea and would be my personal
preference for a 'middle path'.  Until we have one, however, we have to
enforce the trademarks via explicit written permission instead, or else
risk the claim of abandonment.

Bill

> 
> What those criteria would be, I don't know exactly. But it's something
> that's probably worth pondering over for a bit.
> 
> Best,
> Dom
> --
> Counting bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the war drums.
> 
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