Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2000 02:22:02 -0700 (PDT) From: dhesi@rahul.net (Rahul Dhesi) To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: "FreeBSD" as trademark Message-ID: <20000407092202.A26DA7C88@yellow.rahul.net> References: <freebsd-questions.2.2.32.20000407012835.01333468@netmail.home.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
"FreeBSD" is a composite term made up of two words: "Free" and "BSD".
The word "Free" is not trade-mark-able when used with its normal meaning
of "free of cost". The word BSD *might* be trade-mark-able if the
University of California decided to make it so; but they didn't. I
doubt that anybody else could claim trade mark rights over the word
"BSD", when used to refer to "BSD". A valid trade mark gives the
claimant a monopoly over the trade mark, and I doubt that anybody except
the University of California could exercise such a monopoly over 'BSD'.
The composite term "FreeBSD" would be a very, very weak trade mark, if
it could be one at all. It would probably be no stronger a trade mark
than any of these other composite words:
FreeMarket
FreeLunch
FreeSoftware
FreeSample
Now as to whether a trade mark is *claimed* over 'FreeBSD', that's a
different question. I believe there is such a claim. But a claim alone
does not make a trade mark legally valid.
The closest one could come to a valid claim would be to claim a trade
mark over the distinct upper and lowercase in 'FreeBSD'. But it's my
understanding that US trade mark law does not allow a trade mark to be
claimed solely based on the way upper and lowercase are used.
A more distinctive name like 'Walnut Creek FreBSD' would probably make a
good trade mark, as would a more abbreviated version like 'WC-FreeBSD'.
But prefixing 'Free' to a word is a poor way of generating a legally
valid trade mark, especially when the resulting phrase is used with the
same meaning as the original word without the 'Free' prefix.
--
Rahul Dhesi <dhesi@email.rahul.net> (spam-filtered with RSS and ORBS)
See my ORBS faq:
http://www.rahul.net/dhesi/orbs.faq.txt
To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20000407092202.A26DA7C88>