CDROM-Artwork (5)

Peer Schaefer peer.schaefer at hamburg.de
Wed Oct 11 10:54:01 PDT 2006


So, I did a little research (FreeBSD handbook, Google, Wikipedia).

If I am not wrong, Alpha, AMD64, IA-64 and PC-98x1 are no trademarks at 
all (somehow surprising, especially for AMD64). i386 and PowerPC are 
trademarks or at least claimed as such (somehow questionable for "i386" 
'cause numbers alone can't be trademarked and the leading "i" doesn't 
make it a word). ARM, MIPS and UltraSPARC are registered trademarks.

That leads me to this list:
Alpha
AMD64
ARM(R)
i386[TM]
IA-64
MIPS(R)
PC-98x1
PowerPC[TM]
UltraSPARC(R)

Any vetos?

Peer


> Hi Remko,
>
> no, you are not nagging ;-) Feedback is always welcome, and thanks for 
> pointing at this important issue.
>
> I don't agree with you fully, since I didn't USE the trademarks; I 
> only REFERRED to them. USING them would require a license; REFERRING 
> to them is free (disturbingly, REFERRING to a trademark -- in contrast 
> of USING it -- is called "fair use" in anglo-american law, which is 
> pretty silly since it is no "use"). If you REFER to a trademark you 
> may spell it differently (e.g. "Unix" in stead of "UNIX"), as long as 
> you don't degrade or disparage it. Even using the funny symbols (R) 
> and (TM) is not mandatory, as long as the context makes clear that you 
> don't claim the trademark to be your own or to be free.
>
> But -- and now comes the important part -- we do use the (R) symbol 
> for "FreeBSD" itself. Not using it for the other trademarks in this 
> context might be misunderstood in claiming that they are free. THAT 
> could bring us into heavy trouble, so I think it's a good idea to 
> place a (R) resp. (TM) beneath the respecitve name. If we do THAT we 
> should spell the trademarks correctly, because with (R) resp. (TM) we 
> indicate that the actually used term is legally protected; and THIS is 
> only right for the correctly spelled trademark.
>
> So, in the end, if nobody as another advice, I will modify the 
> processor-architecture trademarks to the "correct" spelling and add a 
> (R) resp. (TM). The aesthetic result doesn't make me happy, but Remko 
> is right I fear.
>
> Best regards,
> Peer
>
> BTW: what about the FreeBSD website? Is there a specific "trademark 
> policy"? (not about "FreeBSD"[TM] itself but about the cited trademarks?)
>
>
>> Hello Peer,
>>
>> You are doing a great job, so first of all a big thank you.
>>
>> I read/looked at the images and they are great, but ofcourse i am the
>> nagging user :) and wanted to say, please look at the trademarks etc
>> for AMD64 for example, i think it is written uppercase and it might use
>> a AMD64[tm] or something from the AMD company.  It could give you a lot
>> of problems if there are registered trademarks and you do not use them
>> (which is sad, but reality :( ).
>>
>> Apart from that: GREAT keep it up!
>>   
>
>



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