[SlugLUG] More Iceweasel

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Sean Kellogg (skellogg at gmail.com):

> (trying my best to move the thread over to the new subject)
> 
> On Thursday 26 October 2006 17:37, Rick Moen wrote:
> > Of course, there's a widespread misconception that you need a trademark
> > owner's permission merely to use the owned mark at all.  The owners do
> > their best to perpetuate this myth.  See Cory Doctorow's explanation:
> >
> > http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2003/08/14/trademarks.html
> 
> Cory, as usual, is not wrong.  You and I and Bob can say all the disparing 
> things we want about a trademarked term and be free for civil liability.  But 
> Debian is doing a far cry more than just talking about Firefox...  they are 
> (were?) distributing software under the trademark.  In otherwords, they are 
> engaged in the very behavior trademark is intended to prevent.

Actually, all they'd have to do to be completely immune from any
trademark-infringement tort action is put this on the splash page: 
"This software is a modified version of Mozilla Firefox[R], and as such
is not produced or endorsed by Mozilla, Inc.  Firefox[R] is a registered
trademark of Mozilla. Inc."

In other words, the essence of a trademark infringement action is a
credible claim (sufficient to convince a judge) that a commercial
competitor is using your established mark (distinctive brand name, trade
dress, distinctive stylings, etc.) on competing goods or services in
such a way as to probably confuse your least perceptive customers into
thinking the competing goods or services are yours, or endorsed by you.
Therefore, all your commercial competitor need to is put a prominent
notice on his/her competing offering saying "This isn't Sean's offering,
and Sean doesn't endorse it."

> I'm about as big a copyleftist as you'll find, and even I don't think
> this is an abuse by Mozilla of trademark law.  They have a product and
> a brand associated with that product.  They don't wish others to have
> a different product (i.e. Firefox + non-approved Debian patches)
> associated with the same brand.

Again, you've become convinced that trademark infringement law entitles
them to specify who may use that branding.  It does not.  It merely says
your commercial competitors may not use the branding in such fashion as
is likely to confuse your customers into thinking the competitor's goods
or services are yours rather than his/hers, or are commercially endorsed
by you.

But don't take my word for it:  Read the Lanham Act, which is the
governing Federal statute.  (There is also state trademark, governed by
state statutes and common law.)