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Help the Gnome Foundation Defend the Gnome Trademark Against Groupon

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Re: Help the Gnome Foundation Defend the Gnome Trademark Against Groupon

#21

Post by thaumasiotes »

clarkevans wrote: post #10
VMG wrote: post #5

I really don't know what happened over there at Groupon: http://gnome.groupon.com/#intro/index Did they truly not know? Did they just think the Gnome project wouldn't care? That they'll win the lawsuit?

Trademarks aren’t universal; they are divided into classifications e.g. market segments. Just because the name is the same, doesn't mean the PTO will think of them as being in the same space.

Did you read the article? Here are some of the goods and services covered by GNOME's registered mark:

- downloadable computer software for creating and managing a computer desktop

- downloadable computer software for use as a graphical user interface

- technical consulting services in the field of computer software

whereas the Groupon product is "a tablet based point of sale operating system for merchants to run their entire operation." Except I'm pretty sure they mean "operating system" in the plain-english sense, not the "computers" sense. Groupon could apparently avoid infringing in the goods categories by not making its PoS app downloadable, but it's hard to imagine it not infringing in the category "technical consulting services".

And yeah, going just from my own idiosyncratic views of the world... a PoS app for tablets does not differ significantly, in terms of what it is, from desktop software for PCs. Here's some coverage from 2012 of an effort to get GNOME software to run on android: http://lwn.net/Articles/510465/

Re: Help the Gnome Foundation Defend the Gnome Trademark Against Groupon

#23

Post by Andrenid »

Couldn't someone like Google, Apple, or any of the other huge companies who have made billions with the help of *nix and OSS in general step in and help out with what, to them, is a trivial drop in the bucket of money?

Also how is it even legal for someone to so openly and malicious intrude on a trademarked name? I thought that's the entire point of trademarks.. it protects you from this?

Re: Help the Gnome Foundation Defend the Gnome Trademark Against Groupon

#24

Post by kaoD »

clarkevans wrote: post #10
VMG wrote: post #5

I really don't know what happened over there at Groupon: http://gnome.groupon.com/#intro/index Did they truly not know? Did they just think the Gnome project wouldn't care? That they'll win the lawsuit?

Trademarks aren’t universal; they are divided into classifications e.g. market segments. Just because the name is the same, doesn't mean the PTO will think of them as being in the same space.

I always thought that was more theoretical than real. For instance, could I launch an OS called CocaCola? I don't think so...

Re: Help the Gnome Foundation Defend the Gnome Trademark Against Groupon

#25

Post by voidz »

the_why_of_y wrote: post #11
voidz wrote: post #2

Ehm.. so.. GNOME wants our help now. But how did they behave when GNOME 3 was announced to not work without systemd? Or hey, anyone remember that discussion on a GNOME developers' mailing list, where they planned to take out theming support, because "it is going against the ubiquitous experience we envision GNOME 3 to be"? This smells fishy to me. (I said it more harshly, but realised that I went too far, sorry about…

Where exactly was it "announced" that GNOME 3 does "not work without systemd"? GNOME 3 works on FreeBSD[1][2], you just don't get the robust and secure virtual terminal switching that only systemd's logind running on Linux can provide. GTK+ 3 is now fully themeable with standard W3C CSS[3]. You may need to use Tweak Tool to change your theme, but is that really too much to ask for? But please, don't let these facts s…

The only argument I tried to make, admittedly poorly, is that I notice a contrast between how good they say they are for open source, and actual behaviour from the developers.

I did not say or intend to say "good for them, I hope GNOME loses their brand", well ok I did say that a little. So let me state it differently - that many of their own design decisions also were against open (libre) source philosophies.

Re: Help the Gnome Foundation Defend the Gnome Trademark Against Groupon

#26

Post by m0nty »

vayarajesh wrote: post #16

How is it possible for Groupon to not know about GNOME? they probably have so many development machines running GNONE in their offices.. I find it hard to believe that none of their tech team has never heard of gnome.. Infact they should be grateful for GNONE for it being a huge part of linux operating systems and they must have surely used it during the course of groupon's existance

> How is it possible for Groupon to not know about GNOME?

A hypothetical sociopath-laden company might have heard of another organisation's trademark and decided to steal it anyway and trade on their competitor's good name. Especially if the hypothetical sociopath-laden company felt they could lawyer-up and defeat the smaller, less wealthy competitor. Could just be a dumb mistake but sometimes malice is the answer.

Re: Help the Gnome Foundation Defend the Gnome Trademark Against Groupon

#27

Post by skratlo »

I don't get it either. If GNOME (the desktop environment and the foundation) have a trademark on GNOME, why do they need $80k to defend it? Shouldn't the trademark office then simply reject any further application for GNOME name related to computers, software and operating systems? Is this because of the idiotic defunc. justice system the US is imposing on themselves? Where you can sue mall owner for millions because you slipped on his floor? sigh

Re: Help the Gnome Foundation Defend the Gnome Trademark Against Groupon

#28

Post by psykovsky »

kaoD wrote: post #24
clarkevans wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trademarks aren’t universal; they are divided into classifications e.g. market segments. Just because the name is the same, doesn't mean the PTO will think of them as being in the same space.

I always thought that was more theoretical than real. For instance, could I launch an OS called CocaCola? I don't think so...

Google launched one called KitKat, so I don't see why not. ;)

Re: Help the Gnome Foundation Defend the Gnome Trademark Against Groupon

#29

Post by iancarroll »

Andrenid wrote: post #23

Couldn't someone like Google, Apple, or any of the other huge companies who have made billions with the help of *nix and OSS in general step in and help out with what, to them, is a trivial drop in the bucket of money? Also how is it even legal for someone to so openly and malicious intrude on a trademarked name? I thought that's the entire point of trademarks.. it protects you from this?

Not a lawyer, but it seems that they're applying under a different class of usage.

Re: Help the Gnome Foundation Defend the Gnome Trademark Against Groupon

#30

Post by borplk »

Andrenid wrote: post #23

Couldn't someone like Google, Apple, or any of the other huge companies who have made billions with the help of *nix and OSS in general step in and help out with what, to them, is a trivial drop in the bucket of money? Also how is it even legal for someone to so openly and malicious intrude on a trademarked name? I thought that's the entire point of trademarks.. it protects you from this?

They could. But they don't have to, so they wont.
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