| Re: [eclipse.org-planning-council] Mars+1 Naming Issues |
|
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. |
