On 25/02/2015 3:01 PM, David M Williams
wrote:
I also thought, the
reason we tended
towards names of people, planets, and ancient gods was that we
were told
"common names" can not be trademarked. Has that changed? Wrong
in the first place? Or, is the "external attorney" judging on
a different criteria? These are not names *we* want to
trademark, right?
Would it make a difference if we make "Eclipse" part of
"official
name" (such as the "Eclipse Mars" release) ... and, don't
think anyone would say we could not abbreviate in URLs, etc. to
the shorter
name of .../releases/mars (for example). [Mike, feel free to
take
these legal questions, off-line, if appropriate. But, it would
help if
we had guidance on "types of names" that were not subject to
being trademark ... unless there really is no such thing.]
We already do make Eclipse part of the official name.
I'm not sure where the impression that common names cannot be
trademarked came from. AFAIK, any name can be trademarked in a given
context.
IANAL but as I understand it, there are basically two scenarios
where we can use a name: (a) no one is using it, and (b) lot of
organizations are using it, so no single entity has a dominant
claim.
I do not believe that there is any useful criteria that I (or anyone
else) can supply on what kind of names to consider. This year
(unlike in the past), every single name we looked at has strong
incumbents using that name. It's just bad luck.
Hope that helps.
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