For approval: Open Test License v1.1

[Alex Rousskov]

On Fri, 9 Jan 2004, Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. wrote:

> it is not apparent - - not to me, at least - - why it is included in
> your software license.

Clause #3 is included to prevent serious violations and cheating when
publishing standardized test results. Such publications often hurt
OWNERs and tool image and credibility.

> Have you considered protecting your "reputation" interest through
> trademark?

Yes, I have. AFAIK, the problem with trademarks is that they need to
be constantly enforced to stay in force. This is difficult to do for a
small, user-friendly company, informal development group, or an
individual author.

Imagine: every time somebody publishes a test result with your
trademark in it, you have to contact the publisher, demand
changes/corrections/removal of test results, and threaten them with a
law suite if you think they even sightly violated the trademark usage
rules. You most likely need to pay somebody to draft such complains as
well.

The publisher may be an innocent guy doing some simple testing that is
unlikely to be visible enough to affect your reputation. Thus, you
would not bother him, but you have to, because if you do not do that,
then when a real violation happens, the violator (now a big company
with lawyers, etc.) will tell you to go to hell with your trademark
claims because they will point to 50 cases (archived on the web) where
you failed to enforce the trademark. All those cases were minor
violations by innocent, low-profile guys, but that does not matter,
does it?

Is my rough interpretation of the trademark law correct? Will the
owner have to enforce the trademark all the time and every time? If I
am wrong, trademarks would be the way to go, of course.

Thanks,

Alex.

P.S. If trademarks do not work, I will try to give yes/no answers
     to your original questions. It is difficult to do that because
     your questions are using terminology and use cases that does not
     match what we have in mind. That is why I tried to explain rather
     than say yes/no.


: 3. Publication of results from standardized tests contained within
:    this software (<TESTNAME>, <TESTNAME>) must either strictly
:    adhere to the execution rules for such tests or be accompanied
:    by explicit prior written permission of <OWNER>.

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