🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <32fb75$244@foobar.hanse.de>,
Jens Stark <root@foobar.hanse.de> wrote:
>brad@clarinet.com (Brad Templeton) writes:
>What keeps me - a pretty normal net.citizen from sending out a newgroup
>for market.* ? O.K. - rmgroups by god-knows-who. Netiquette. But LAWS ?

Trademark laws vary from country to country, so I can't speak for where
you live.  In the USA.

a) Rob announced plans for a market hierarchy where he would sell
advertising, and worked to get this covered in other media as well.  He
thus established some awareness of the name, though he has not yet
created the hierarchy.

b) If you were to create such a group, he could argue that your doing so
would cause confusion between the groups you created and his, and that
this would hurt the value of his.  He could thus sue you for
trademark infringement.

However, this is clouded by the fact that:

a) He has yet to create the groups, and they're a bit overdue

b) He's selling his rights in the name to somebody else

c) The term "market" is arguably a generic term.   Ie. one might even
use the sentence, "misc.forsale is a market newsgroup."


It would be up to him whether to sue.   A "clari" group on the other hand
is something that:
	a) Has a clear commercial value and name recognition
	b) Has existed for over five years
	c) Is not a generic term in any sense.

And thus there is a much stronger trademark case for us.
-- 
Brad Templeton, publisher, ClariNet Communications Corp.
The net's #1 electronic newspaper (circulation 65,000) -- info@clarinet.com