trademarks [was Re: Minutes of the Board meeting 2006/Feb/15]

["Dominic Lachowicz" <domlachowicz gmail com>]

On 2/27/06, Bill Haneman <Bill Haneman sun com> wrote:
>
> 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.

If we want to avoid the "implicitness" bit, perhaps we could have some
sort of secure webapp that clearly defines the TOCs of such a TM
policy, delineating the rights and limitations one has when using the
Foundation's marks. By filling in your relevant information and
clicking "accept", an explicit contract between the foundation and you
- the licensee - has been formed. The licensee is bound by the
contract, and may use the TMs in a way that is consistent with said
contract. The Foundation still gets to enforce and protect its mark,
while still being fairly liberal with who gets to use it.

Under such a policy, no warm-bodies would be involved past the initial
setup stages, unless people were found to be infringing the TM or
violating the TOCs of the contract.

Best,
Dom
--
Counting bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the war drums.