GNOME gets GroupedOn [LWN.net]

GroupOn, a sort of Internet sales discount coupon company has recently announced a point-of-sale tablet called "Gnome". The GNOME Foundation, by virtue of having used that name since the 1990's and having trademarked it in 2006, objects strongly to what it sees as a blatant infringement of its trademark. The organization is scrambling to file its opposition to GroupOn's new trademark filings, but that takes work — and money. So there is now a fund-raising effort in the works to help make this opposition happen. "Help us raise the funds to fight back and most of all call public attention to this terrible behavior by Groupon. Help us make sure that when people hear about GNOME software they learn about freedom and not proprietary software. Our counsel has advised us that we will need $80,000 to oppose the registration of the first set of 10 applications. If we are able to defend the mark without spending this amount, we will use the remaining funds to bolster and improve GNOME."

Update: according to Engadget, GroupOn says it wants to work things out, all the way to picking a new product name if necessary.

Another update: The GNOME Foundation reports that Groupon will abandon its pending trademarks and proceed with a name change.

to post comments

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 13:37 UTC (Tue) by mageta (subscriber, #89696) [Link] (30 responses)

> Our counsel has advised us that we will need $80,000 to oppose the registration

What? Sry, I am complete oblivious to any of these American trademark-laws and stuff, but does GNOME get the money back if they succeed or is this spending really a one-way investment and this GroupOn organization could kind of DOS GNOME with more spendings? I may not understand this completely, but if GNOME got a trademark in 2006 (like stated in the article), why would it need to spend this enormous amount of money now - what is the point in doing it in the first place then (seriously)?

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 13:44 UTC (Tue) by stumbles (guest, #8796) [Link] (26 responses)

If only it was as simple as showing proof of "ownership", the offender saying "OK, your right, we are sorry." but that did not happen. The offender told them in effect to pound sand. Once that happens you are now in legal land and gets horribly complicated requiring legal counsel. It would be wonderful if Gnome was successful compensated for their legal costs. It has happened before but I think and IANAL it depends on the judges ruling and the actions leading up to the case.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 15:42 UTC (Tue) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link] (25 responses)

I'm asking whether there is any risk to the GNOME project of being sued by Groupon over the trademark at some future date. If not, I can't see what all the fuss is about. GNOME can continue using the name and this point-of-sale tablet can use it too.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 15:51 UTC (Tue) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (20 responses)

The risk is that non-enforcement would result in loss of trademark and therefore if somebody decides to distribute GNOME with spyware as they did with Firefox, the legal option that was available for Mozilla [1] will be unavailable for GNOME Foundation.

[1]
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2013/04/30/protecting-our-b...

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 15:59 UTC (Tue) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link] (1 responses)

Thanks, that makes sense. And I can see that the word GNOME is considered to be a trade mark by the project: http://www.gnome.org/foundation/legal-and-trademarks/

Personally, I'm not a fan of the Firefox trademark licensing, though I understand their reasons for it; I would prefer the trademark to be a separate formal adjective, as Mozilla(tm) Firefox, Ximian(tm) GNOME (if you remember that) and so on. Then the way is clear for others to make their own forks and distributions without having to obfuscate all relationship with the original name. That seems more consistent with the ideals of free software. There is only one GNU Emacs but anyone can create a project called XEmacs or Acme Emacs, etc.

I think we really wouldn't enjoy GNOME descending into the Iceweasel situation where distributions cannot ship local patches without renaming everything. Therefore, I am sceptical of the theoretical value of some future trademark enforcement.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 17:28 UTC (Tue) by hp (guest, #5220) [Link]

GNOME has a longstanding trademark policy already, and they don't require the iceweasel-style renaming.
https://wiki.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/Resources/Licensin...

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 17:11 UTC (Tue) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link] (17 responses)

>The risk is that non-enforcement would result in loss of trademark

Has that actually happened to any trademark within living memory?

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 17:15 UTC (Tue) by rjw57 (subscriber, #17909) [Link] (3 responses)

http://www.mancunium-ip.co.uk/articles/Postregistration.pdf

Escalator, Aspirin, Gramophone, Hoover and Thermos have all become generic.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 17:31 UTC (Tue) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link] (2 responses)

My definition of living memory is slightly more stringent than 'there is somebody still alive who were alive at the time' - I'd also require that they be old enough at the time to actually remember the time before, which probably rules out Aspirin, Gramophone, and Hoover.

Nevertheless, I will concede 'Escalator', which became genericised more recently than I realised (1950), and 'Thermos' which I wasn't aware is legally generic in the US (since 1963 - would that make it the most recently genericised trademark in the US?).

Thanks for responding, anyway - you're the first person that's been able to give me an example of any trademark becoming generic within *almost* the last 50 years.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 17:34 UTC (Tue) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]

>My definition of living memory is slightly more stringent than 'there is somebody still alive who were alive at the time' - I'd also require that they be old enough at the time to actually remember the time before

Actually, I guess there are probably a fair few people nowadays living to 110 or so, so fair enough - technically I should be looking about a decade further back than I was thinking of.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 16, 2014 20:32 UTC (Sun) by JanC_ (subscriber, #34940) [Link]

Some trademarks have become semi-generic, at the very least (there might be no lawsuit/judge who ruled about it, but they are used as a generic in practice in at least some areas).

Examples would be Bic (which is used/understood by _everyone_ as a generic name for a ballpoint pen in some countries, although the Bic company has been fighting violently against that), Velcro, Walkman, etc.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 17:48 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (7 responses)

Xerox, Scotch tape....

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 12, 2014 3:15 UTC (Wed) by mcatanzaro (subscriber, #93033) [Link] (5 responses)

Kleenex, Styrofoam

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 12, 2014 8:51 UTC (Wed) by ehiggs (guest, #90713) [Link] (1 responses)

A lot of trademarks are used as generic terms and if the owner of the trademark tried to sue people for their use they would almost certainly lose the case and their trademark in the process (though, IANAL). e.g. Band-aid, Photoshop, Bubblewrap, Cashpoint (UK), Dumpster, Frisbee, Ping Pong, Onesie, Realtor, Tannoy (UK), Tarmac (UK), Velcro.

A lot of this list was found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_generici...

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 12, 2014 9:36 UTC (Wed) by halla (subscriber, #14185) [Link]

Speaking from experience, naming an image manipulation application "KImageShop" will definitely get one into trouble, at least in Germany, at least that was the case ten years ago.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 12, 2014 11:36 UTC (Wed) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link] (2 responses)

>Kleenex, Styrofoam

Both still active trademarks, I *believe*, though I'm not 100% sure about Styrofoam.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 12, 2014 16:46 UTC (Wed) by mcatanzaro (subscriber, #93033) [Link]

You're right.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 16, 2014 20:36 UTC (Sun) by JanC_ (subscriber, #34940) [Link]

Trademarks legally, used as generics in practice.

That's just the law being disconnected from the real world...

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 12, 2014 11:36 UTC (Wed) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]

>Xerox, Scotch tape

Both still active trademarks.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 19:22 UTC (Tue) by ssmith32 (subscriber, #72404) [Link] (2 responses)

And one that really put a black mark on a brand.. Heroin...

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 21:39 UTC (Tue) by philh (subscriber, #14797) [Link] (1 responses)

In the case of Aspirin and Heroin, while you could perhaps claim that it's a case of not defending the trademark adequately, that would be in a military rather than a legal sense.

Both were removed from trademark protection under the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 as part of the war reparations, but only in the victorious ally countries, so Aspirin is still trademarked in large parts of the world (including Germany) with the trademark belonging to Bayer.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 17, 2014 15:06 UTC (Mon) by jwarnica (subscriber, #27492) [Link]

Personally, I continue to hold a minor grudge against our Canadian negotiator at the time. Aspirin is TM here in the great white north.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 22:46 UTC (Tue) by HenrikH (subscriber, #31152) [Link]

Sony Walkman

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 12, 2014 0:27 UTC (Wed) by mjpvirtual (guest, #57886) [Link]

Videotape - an Ampex trademark from the 1950s, lost in the 1970s to generic use.

I believe Apple lost the trademark for "App Store" recently.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 15:53 UTC (Tue) by johannbg (guest, #65743) [Link] (3 responses)

I think the question people should be asking is why the Gnome community is taking action now when Groupon launched Gnome™ in middle of May [1] and personally I dont think there is any risk for the Gnome project itself being sued but the enterprises shipping Gnome.

Now since the enterprises need to cover their own ass let their legal team handle this ( pro bono or what not ) instead of having community members trying to foot an 80k bill...

1. https://www.groupon.com/blog/cities/groupon-launches-gnome

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 16:07 UTC (Tue) by tnluker (guest, #1086) [Link]

My understanding is that the GNOME Foundation was attempting to be civil and resolve this issue without getting all legal.

I don't see anything wrong with community members being asked to donate money to the Gnome Foundation, there are plenty of non-corporate users who appreciate GNOME.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 17:37 UTC (Tue) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link]

It has been an vague item on the minutes of the board meeting for quite some time. I remember hearing about something going on at GUADEC. That conference is quite some time ago.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 18:43 UTC (Tue) by ebassi (subscriber, #54855) [Link]

the board has been working on this issue quietly since early May. we could not publish details because it's already hard to handle legal issues in private, let alone when they become public.

I was still on the board of directors when this thing started, and I even raised the point at GUADEC 2014 during the annual general meeting of the Foundation, to get an authoritative answer out to the community that the board was doing something, but it could not be wholly shared with the membership (and the world) at large.

as the campaign page says: it's been a continuous conversation, but Groupon decided not only to *not* rename the product when asked, but also to start filing new applications — that now the Foundation has to object to.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 16:37 UTC (Tue) by jebba (guest, #4439) [Link] (2 responses)

> does GNOME get the money back if they succeed

In a trademark case, you cannot recover lost legal fees if you win a clear cut case. You are out that money for sure, unless there is a settlement, in which case anything could be potentially agreed to. But the judges can't require the other side to pay legal fees.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 20:27 UTC (Tue) by tao (subscriber, #17563) [Link] (1 responses)

Wouldn't that imply that companies who can afford going to court until the opponent runs out of money to protect the trademark could effectively grab hold of any trademark by death by a thousand cuts?

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 21:22 UTC (Tue) by SEJeff (guest, #51588) [Link]

Welcome to a core tenant of US Patent law, a war of price/legal attrition that is stacked against the little guys that patents were originally designed to protect :)

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 13:40 UTC (Tue) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link] (6 responses)

Is there any real risk(*) that at some point GNOME could be forced to change its name in a trademark suit? Surely not, given nearly 20 years now of using it.

(*) Of course if you ask a lawyer, they are trained to enumerate all scenarios that in principle could happen, no matter how implausible or unlikely. So, even if legal advice refuses to rule out the possibility altogether, I would not conclude that there is a real risk worth worrying about. It would have to be something a bit more concrete than that.

Personally speaking, I don't see the problem with any word from the English language being used to describe several different things or products; and given that almost everything today relates to computers in one way or another, I don't see much scope for confusion between the new point-of-sale system and the GNOME desktop. It is regrettable that trademark lawsuits from the likes of Phoenix (the BIOS developer) have wasted time and energy in free software development; I think it would be an equal waste to imitate them.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 15:10 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (4 responses)

If you have trademarks you have to play these games if you want to keep the trademarks. It's not just a software thing anybody can have a legally recognized trademark but then lose it due to inaction.

Classic example is 'Kleenex'. It's a brand name, but it's not a legally defensible trademark despite the fact that it once was.

For some projects and companies... like say Mozilla and Redhat, losing the trademark would severely harm the ability for them to do business and market themselves in the manner they have chosen to do it today. Both of these people use their trademarks as a sort of 'weapon' to distinguish their products from other companies/people that may use their code.

For Gnome I have never seen them care or have policies about other people using their software to release 'Gnome'-branded desktop environments and related software. So I don't know how important it is for them.

I guess it's important enough that they want to do a fund raiser... From my perspective it would be annoying to lose, or at least have a weakened, a free software project's trademark, but I am not sure if it's 80,000 dollars annoying.

You'd have to talk to a lawyer to get a accurate idea about how much this would weaken Gnome's position if they ever did need to go after somebody for trademark violation (maybe somebody is spreading malware through a Gnome Desktop cdrom on Ebay or something), but I expect it would certainly have a negative effect on their case.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 17:12 UTC (Tue) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link] (3 responses)

>Classic example is 'Kleenex'. It's a brand name, but it's not a legally defensible trademark

Yes it is.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 22:02 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (2 responses)

Oh, I suppose you are right. It's common term, but people don't use it in advertisements.

I take back Kleenex and substitute: aspirin, dry Ice, trampoline, and videotape. :)

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 22:13 UTC (Tue) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841) [Link]

"Aspirin" is still a protected trademark in Germany, as noted above.

So far as I was able to track down, "videotape" is still a protectable trademark of Ampex. It's just that no one cares any more because the thing itself is no longer of interest. "videotape" is an example of a trademark that retained its protectable status despite entering common usage as a verb, and has been cited as such in arguments about whether Google needs to be concerned about "to google" becoming common usage.

"trampoline" - I don't know.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 12, 2014 11:53 UTC (Wed) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]

Trampoline is a good one, thanks. It may well have been less than 50 years since it became generic (I couldn't find any reference in 5 minutes of Googling™).

My point in this thread, just to make it clear, is that the commonly cited risk of losing a trademark by not aggressively defending it is not well founded.

Of all the examples people have given so far, most are not in fact legally generic, and for those that are, it's because they're *so* widely used that most people are entirely unaware that they were *ever* trademarks - that's essentially the bar that has to be passed in order for a trademark to be lost, and it's an astronomically high one.

Just to add to that, it's becoming less and less likely over time that a trademark will be ruled legally generic, as the courts get progressively more pro-business and pro-IP over time, which can be seen from the difficulty in finding examples from within the last 50 years, or more than a handful since the 1920s.

I don't mean to say that Gnome should not be defending their trademark, as is their right, just that this particular reason - though commonly given as an explanation in trademark cases - would not really be a valid one.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 15:26 UTC (Tue) by Russ.Dill@gmail.com (guest, #52805) [Link]

Given the way they are using the trademark, it certainly attempts to describe the same type of thing:

"Gnome is an amazing piece of technology that plugs our merchants into the Web and helps them form relationships with every customer that walks in their front door," said Eric Lefkofsky, CEO. "When it's complete, Gnome will serve as an operating system for merchants to run their entire operation and enable them to create real-time promotions that bring customers into their business when they need them the most."

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 13:40 UTC (Tue) by Tjebbe (guest, #34055) [Link] (15 responses)

Can someone enlighten me? This is certainly a bad move by groupon, and I'm all for the battle. But why does it cost that much when the trademark is registered, in obvious use, and in an obviously related field?

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 18:49 UTC (Tue) by ebassi (subscriber, #54855) [Link] (14 responses)

the cost is for raising objections to 10 trademark applications fielded by Groupon and that the GNOME Foundation considers infringing on their own trademark in that specific class.

sadly, that's the cost of dealing with this kind of stuff. since this is not a lawsuit, and trademark infringement lawsuits don't necessarily end with legal fees covered by who lost, this is money that may likely never be recouped by the Foundation itself. we could have spent 80k to fund hackfests, conferences, and hardware — but noooo, we had to defend our trademark against a company that makes 2.5 billion dollars a year, that has a 5 billion dollars market cap value, and yet tries to steamroll a no profit foundation because their marketing department cannot think of a better name than "GNOME".

on top of that, USD 80k is not even close to the cost of a full litigation.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 19:28 UTC (Tue) by zdzichu (subscriber, #17118) [Link] (13 responses)

Excuse me, but so what? Why ”defending” the trademark is so important? Software will not magically cease to work if trademark is ”lost”.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 20:12 UTC (Tue) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (12 responses)

Once you loose the trademark, you loose any ability to object to someone else claiming that their thing is "Gnome", so you could have malware infested versions being distributed with no legal way to object to them, you can have disgruntled developers who want to fork the software insisting on using the same name for their software.

In general, it makes it extremely hard to market the software, and to defend against people who are doing things that hurt the reputation of the software.

If they decided to not fight for the trademark, the best thing for them to do would be to pick a different name and to rename the software (but that will only last until there is a name conflict for the new name)

Trademarks are narrow, Apple music and Apple computers are not conflicting names because they are in different fields. So it's possible to argue that Gnome Desktop and Gnome Point of Sale software don't conflict, but that is a much uglier argument to try and make (but is the one that Groupon is going to have to make)

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 21:36 UTC (Tue) by tpo (subscriber, #25713) [Link] (11 responses)

> Once you loose the trademark, you loose any ability to object to someone else claiming that their thing is "Gnome", so you could have malware infested versions being distributed with no legal way to object to them, you can have disgruntled developers who want to fork the software insisting on using the same name for their software

Would in that case "Gnome" become a generic term (which it actually allready is)?

I'm not sure it'd really be that bad, if Gnome would loose the ability to do what you describe above.

If people would want to get the *real* Gnome, then they would find a way. Just like you can go out and get a fake Coke or a fake watch, you can also go out and get the real one.

Inversely, would that also allow anybody to use Gnome in the way GroupOn is using it?

I'm not sure I'm really seeing the problem.
*t

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 22:14 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (8 responses)

If you want to have a trademark this is the sort of thing you have to do. That's all. There is nothing you can do about it besides play the game and the game costs money.

If there is no point to having a trademark then that's a entirely different argument. Seems to have been a big deal for Mozilla, OpenOffice, MySQL, and Redhat. I don't know why it's would not be a big deal for Gnome.

> Would in that case "Gnome" become a generic term (which it actually allready is)?

It is if you are talking about European folklore, but it's not generic if the context is software.

Although it may not be for very long. I did a search for 'Gnome' on uspto.gov and it looks like there is about 6-7 new 'GNOME' trademarks for various companies filed this year. A software-as-a-service company, some door company, and so on and so forth. Then there is a large number of uses of Gnome in a phrase, 'GNOME BY GROUPON' is one of them.

So Gnome has a bit of a problem on it's hands.

Personally I would be happy to eliminate all forms of IP law, but that's not the world we live in.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 12, 2014 12:18 UTC (Wed) by ebassi (subscriber, #54855) [Link]

*potential* infringement only happens if the trademark is awarded in the same classes — the GNOME trademark owned by the GNOME Foundation is registered in classes 9 and 42, which incidentally are two of the classes also used by GroupOn.

the trademark also has to be similar, not just in the name but also in the appearance, so that a case can be made that somebody could potentially confuse the two trademarks, which is the whole point of trademark registration, really.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 12, 2014 12:23 UTC (Wed) by ebassi (subscriber, #54855) [Link]

just checked, and the only trademark that comes even close to GNOME's own — if you exclude the ones GroupOn applied to — is for a software as a service for irrigation. this *may* be problematic, so it's probably good to raise it with the Board of directors, even though I think it's pretty clear that the GNOME Foundation is not "providing an interactive web site featuring plant irrigation information".

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 12, 2014 21:35 UTC (Wed) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (5 responses)

> Personally I would be happy to eliminate all forms of IP law, but that's not the world we live in.

I don't think you would, actually ...

Do you want to buy "Ford" branded brake-pads for your Ford Explorer, only to discover (AFTER an accident that left you in a wheelchair for life) that they were not made by Ford, had absolutely nothing to do with Ford, and were cheap 3rd-world rip-offs? And of course, you have no legal recourse because you CAN'T FIND the people responsible.

Trademark law is actually one of the few bits of Intellectual Property Law that actually make sense. They are intended to make sure that the buyer actually gets what they think they are paying for. Get rid of Trademark Law, and you as a consumer have no defence against rip-off merchants who have massive resources available to trick you into buying stuff that isn't what it seems ...

Cheers,
Wol

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 14, 2014 12:47 UTC (Fri) by jezuch (subscriber, #52988) [Link] (4 responses)

> Trademark law is actually one of the few bits of Intellectual Property Law that actually make sense.

Maybe, but it still can be spectacularly abused and in current IP climate it often runs amok. For example, Apple suing owners of the domain "a.pl" (don't know how successfully, though).

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 15, 2014 15:00 UTC (Sat) by Jonno (guest, #49613) [Link] (3 responses)

> Trademark law is actually one of the few bits of Intellectual Property Law that actually make sense.

In it original form trademark law doesn't make anything illegal that isn't already covered by something else, such as fraud. All it does is provide a different standing to sue (allowing the provider of the legit goods of services, rather than the receiver of the fraudulent goods or services, to sue the provider of the fraudulent foods or services), and in some cases a lower evidenciary standard ("on balance of probability" rather than "beyond reasonable doubt"). The theory being that the general public benefits from the legit provider shutting down the fraudulent provider before anyone actually becomes a victim of the later. This aspect of trademark law, which resembles consumer protection laws more than other intellectual property laws, surely makes sense and should in my opinion be retained (though details could probably benefit from some reform, just like tort law could).

However, more recent additions to trademark law diverges from this origin and more closely resembles patent law than consumer protection law. For example, it is now a felony in the EU to cross a national border while in possession of trademark-infringing goods, regardless of intent, or even knowledge of the infringement. And as usual for recent IP laws the sentencing is all out of proportion, to the point that the maximum prison sentence for the victim of a fraud (aka perpetrator of trademark infringement) is longer than that for the perpetrator of the same fraud. Personally I think this aspect of trademark law should go the way of the dodo, and the sooner the better.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 16, 2014 13:20 UTC (Sun) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link] (2 responses)

> For example, it is now a felony in the EU to cross a national border while in possession of trademark-infringing goods, regardless of intent, or even knowledge of the infringement.

Ok, you've made me curious. Do you have a reference for that? Google is not giving me anything useful.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 16, 2014 18:13 UTC (Sun) by rodgerd (guest, #58896) [Link] (1 responses)

It wounds like a confused retelling of courts in Britain accepting that it's a trademark offence to bulk-buy cheap, legitimate Levis jeans in Mexico and resell them in the UK, i.e. misusing trademark law to enforce cross-border price discrimination.

http://www.out-law.com/page-2814

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 16, 2014 21:47 UTC (Sun) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]

Ah, that might be it. The whole thing about restrictions on crossing national borders in the EU is completely weird since you're not allowed to restrict the transfer of goods within the EU. The customs union applies to goods being imported/exported from the EU. The bit about it being a felony sounded extremely weird since the only sanctions I've ever seen for trademark related cases have involved the destruction of the objects in question.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 22:58 UTC (Tue) by HenrikH (subscriber, #31152) [Link] (1 responses)

It's not about the people who knows how to get the real GNOME. It's about protecting the ones who doesn't know. With trademark, GNOME can legally get sites that package GNOME with malware taken down.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 23:29 UTC (Tue) by tpo (subscriber, #25713) [Link]

> It's not about the people who knows how to get the real GNOME. It's about protecting the ones who doesn't know. With trademark, GNOME can legally get sites that package GNOME with malware taken down.

I'd get Gnome via 'aptitude'. Others would use yum or would get it by default with their distro. How else would a hypothetical person be able to get Gnome? I think even in the future Gnome will not be installable by simply clicking on a link to a .exe file, or is that the plan? It all feels a bit far fetched to me. And Gnome (as a community or the foundation) intends to defend against this yet unknown other way of installing a malware Gnome version with $80K via a trademark suit?

I'm not being ironic here, but frank: I have a bit trouble clearly discerning a rational point of defending the trademark.

Or has it all maybe more to do with pride?

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 14:16 UTC (Tue) by marduk (guest, #3831) [Link] (1 responses)

I wonder if it's even worth it. This product seems doomed to failure anyway.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 15:45 UTC (Tue) by sdenlinger (subscriber, #24239) [Link]

It doesn't matter how viable the product/company is who is attempting to use your trademark. You have to defend it, since your defense of your trademark serves as evidence that you're using it as a trademark. There's recursion in the legal world, too.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 15:20 UTC (Tue) by johannbg (guest, #65743) [Link] (1 responses)

Surely the "Enterprises" armed with legal teams and are shipping Gnome as their product will step in here and take care of this problem if not for Gnome itself then for their own sake...

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 16:17 UTC (Tue) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link]

The Nazgûl ride again!

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 17:21 UTC (Tue) by yooo (guest, #99735) [Link] (8 responses)

Looks like GroupOn wants to get some of the burden of thrashing the GNOME trademark off of the GNOME 3 guys.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 17:40 UTC (Tue) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link] (7 responses)

There are no "GNOME 3 guys".

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 20:50 UTC (Tue) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] (6 responses)

Did you really not understand what the poster meant?

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 21:12 UTC (Tue) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link] (5 responses)

He meant to troll and I don't really care about that. What is more important is to make clear that GNOME is not solely guys, further than there is no "GNOME 3 group".

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 23:41 UTC (Tue) by Trelane (guest, #56877) [Link] (1 responses)

> further than there is no "GNOME 3 group".

Nor is there a Swedish conspiracy.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 12, 2014 0:11 UTC (Wed) by yann.morin.1998 (guest, #54333) [Link]

> Nor is there a Swedish conspiracy.

Nor is there an Eric Conspiracy.

Muhahahaha!!! :-)

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 12, 2014 4:00 UTC (Wed) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] (2 responses)

I thought it was a mildly amusing joke. I suppose some trolling is in the eye of the beholder.

You don't actually believe that the original poster was asserting that Gnome is solely guys and that there exists a Gnome 3 group, do you? That would be reading an awful lot into 3 colloquial words in a throwaway statement.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 12, 2014 10:59 UTC (Wed) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link] (1 responses)

If things are repeated often enough without any reply, it'll become the truth. GNOME does a lot of outreach, it is important to highlight that time and time again. Going to GUADEC every so often I've noticed the changes. It's not just guys from Europe & USA anymore (my impression when I was in Stuttgart; GUADEC 2005). Way more people from South America and Middle East/Asia, coupled with more women (way more than before; still not at a normal level IMO). When I grew up, there was a whole "don't use male-terminology". That wasn't highlighted once, that was highlighted every single time and despite that it still took a long time to change that custom.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 12, 2014 15:18 UTC (Wed) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]

Too much of a good thing can be bad and, in my opinion, you're absolutely over-doing it. Beware of "jumping the shark", as they say.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 20:32 UTC (Tue) by ssmith32 (subscriber, #72404) [Link] (7 responses)

And it's over (looks like someone with a cluestick finally made their way into Groupon's legal):

https://engineering.groupon.com/2014/misc/gnome-foundatio...

(Groupon will rename)

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 20:59 UTC (Tue) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link] (6 responses)

More likely, Groupon decided that the GNOME Foundation wasn't going to give up without a fight, so it would be cheaper to rename their unreleased product than to litigate. I guess you might be able to classify that as getting a clue, but I see it more as backing down.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 21:43 UTC (Tue) by SEJeff (guest, #51588) [Link] (5 responses)

Regardless, the foundation raised over $68k USD that will go to continue their core mission.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 11, 2014 22:31 UTC (Tue) by DOT (subscriber, #58786) [Link] (4 responses)

It seems they have some other cases to attend to, so I guess that money will go to the lawyers anyhow.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 12, 2014 13:35 UTC (Wed) by timtas (guest, #2815) [Link] (3 responses)

Why on earth can GNOME be registered as a trademark anyway, the last time I checked, it was just an ordinary english word for something like a dwarf. I mean, even Microsoft failed with registering Windows, they had to change it to Microsoft Windows.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 12, 2014 15:15 UTC (Wed) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]

>Why on earth can GNOME be registered as a trademark anyway, the last time I checked, it was just an ordinary english word for something like a dwarf

There's nothing unusual about trademarking dictionary words. Bear in mind that a trademark (ignoring logos/icons/etc) is not only on the *word*, but the word in a given *context*. This is why you can have two products or companies with the same name, with both of them being trademarked.

In the case of Gnome, there's nothing about the word that's intrinsically linked to desktop environments, so it's not a generic word *in that context*. You would not be able to get a trademark on "Desktop Environment", if you decided that's what you wanted to call your desktop environment. You would *probably* not be able to get a trademark on "Really Good Desktop Environment". You *would* be able to get a trademark on 'Lychee' as the name of your DE, assuming there are no other related products out there using it as a trademark (I've not checked), but I rather doubt you'd get away with calling it 'Apple'.

>I mean, even Microsoft failed with registering Windows, they had to change it to Microsoft Windows.

I don't think this is true - certainly Microsoft claim that 'Windows' is a registered trademark. But assuming I've misunderstood that, the reason would be not that it's a simple word, but that's it's a simple word that's commonly used as a generic term *in the context of graphical interfaces*, and already was at the time that the trademark was registered (ie it hasn't *become* generic; it was *already* generic).

I note that http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/intellectualproperty... does not appear to list a trademark for 'Office' or 'Word', presumably because the USPTO told them to take a hike.

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 12, 2014 18:17 UTC (Wed) by nirbheek (subscriber, #54111) [Link] (1 responses)

> Why on earth can GNOME be registered as a trademark anyway, the last time I checked, it was just an ordinary english word for something

You mean, like Apple? :)

GNOME gets GroupedOn

Posted Nov 12, 2014 18:25 UTC (Wed) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link]

Quite. A company selling kitsch garden sculpture would have great difficulty getting 'Gnome' as a trademark in much the same way that a fruiterer would have great difficulty getting 'Apple' as a trademark. A record company or consumer electronics company, on the other hand, is in the clear.