Serious trademark trouble.

[David Johnson]

On Sat, 12 Aug 2000, Ean R . Schuessler wrote:
> I don't know how many of you are aware of this, but I must have missed any
> discussion that occured on it. It appears that our lack of action on an 
> Open Source trademark (bickering, bad communication, et. al) has created
> a serious problem. A commercial organization (Navant Corporation) has filed
> for a trademark on the "Open Source" term, with the following area of
> business interest.

As I recall, the Open Source trademark was denied to the OSI last year.
I don't remember the reason for the denial, but the same reason that
OSI didn't get it would also apply to Navant.

I suspect that some Navant lawyer did a trademark search, found that
Open Source was not trademarked, and filed for it. If some bonehead
bureaucrat does assign it, it won't stand because of previous and
current usage of the term, and a previous filing. 

Filing for a trademark or patent is somewhat like a lawsuit. Anyone can
sue anyone for any reason, but that doesn't mean the lawsuit will reach
a court of law, let alone win.

-- 
David Johnson
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