From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Apr 13 03:43:14 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id DAA23863 for freebsd-chat-outgoing; Mon, 13 Apr 1998 03:43:14 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from ceia.nordier.com (m1-10-dbn.dial-up.net [196.34.155.10]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id KAA23855 for ; Mon, 13 Apr 1998 10:43:08 GMT (envelope-from rnordier@iafrica.com) Received: (from rnordier@localhost) by ceia.nordier.com (8.8.8/8.6.12) id MAA11727; Mon, 13 Apr 1998 12:42:36 +0200 (SAT) From: Robert Nordier Message-Id: <199804131042.MAA11727@ceia.nordier.com> Subject: Re: BSD copyrights In-Reply-To: <199804130939.CAA03635@implode.root.com> from David Greenman at "Apr 13, 98 02:39:17 am" To: supporters@nanyang-computer.com (FreeBSD commercial support) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 12:42:34 +0200 (SAT) Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL31 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org David Greenman wrote: > >Somebody suggested that BSD was a copyright of BSDI. > > It is. Their disclaimer is incomplete. This is really an issue of a trademark rather than a copyright. A trademark is fundamentally different from a copyright or a patent, in that there is no automatic protection afforded by the state. Because new works of "art" or "artifice", and new ideas, are social benefits, the state effectively says, "Go ahead, and don't worry, and for X years we'll grant you protection." Trademarks aren't social benefits. So there's no automatic protection (and so, incidentally, also no expiry date). To establish a trademark, you have to find some token which unambiguously identifies your product within a particular domain. Thereafter you have to fight tooth and nail to maintain that association. This (pretty much literally) means registering a protest every time you become aware that someone is using your trademark inappropriately. Inappropriate use includes someone using your chosen token as though it refers to a generic class of objects of which your product is just an instance. The essential point is that defense of trademarks must be readily apparent, continuous (no lapses), and allow of no precedents. There are many textbook cases of trademarks that have been "lost" to companies (who were lax in defending them) by becoming merely generic terms. When AT&T still owned UNIX, they provided a good example of how things should be done. If FoodleWare came up with a "ProUNIX" package, they would probably have been obliged to include the following disclaimer: UNIX is a registered trademark of UNIX System Laboratories, Inc. FoodleWare is not affiliated with AT&T. Because "BSD" doesn't unambiguously map to BSDI; because "BSD" does refer to a generic class of operating systems; and because BSDI has no visible record of tenaciously defending the letters "BSD" as its sole property (in the OS domain), trademark issues should not be a concern. -- Robert Nordier To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message