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Uruguayan SuSE Reseller Trying to Trademark Linux

Posted by Hemos on Thu Jan 06, 2000 09:07 PM
from the bad-bad-idea dept.
Patents
Ysidoro writes "With No. 316.081 of August 30, 1999 has been filed before the Uruguayan Trademark Office a trademark application for registration of the LINUX name to International class 42 (computer related services). This application has been filed by Mr. Francisco Pereira and Mr. Enrique Place de Cuadro, of Montevideo, Uruguay. In accordance with the official publication from the Industrial Property Bulletin No. 6 of December 1999. See the open letter writed by a group of Uruguayan Linux users. "
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  • It's a Joke.... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I think these guys are just trying to get us geeks back for laughing at that Simpsons where Homer called their country 'you-are-gay' ...
  • Did anyone from /. ask SuSE for a comment? I'd be interested to know where they stand on this.
  • Cuando llegue aquel día hipotético en que domine Vd un segundo idioma con la décima parte de la capabilidad vista en los autores cuyas obras--y cuya causa--ya discutimos, pues entonces tal vez podrá decir cuatro putas palabras sobre la buena ortografía. Pero ahora, ni se le ocurra. Vaya maleducado que es Vd que no se dé cuenta del respecto debido a estos estimados señores! Le aseguro que habrán traducido esta noticia no por su proprio beneficio, sino por Vd.

    s/capabilidad/capacidad/
    s/respecto/respeto/
    s/dé/da/ (not actually completely wrong, but sounds a bit strange)
    s/proprio/propio/

    There's other minor weird things here, but one comes specially to attention: the use of the formal pronouns ("usted", abbreviated "Vd", and associated verbal morphology) when insulting the addressee. It is usual to use the familiar form "tu" when insulting, specially when cuss words are used.

    Still, for a second-language speaker of Spanish, this gets an "A", I'd say ;-)

    ---


  • Hmmn. I'm not that familiar with SuSE's OS, but isn't it a violation of the various Free/Open Source licenses for them to grant exclusivity in distribution? I understand wanting control of the channel and all that, but don't they have to allow for redistribution of all of the free parts of their OS? And therefore they cannot say 'you have exclusive rights,' since that... well, EXCLUDES redistribution?

    The actual story, the trademark thing, that'll work itself out correctly. I'm more interested in this exclusivity subplot, and whether SuSE is willfully breaking license, or if this is a misunderstanding on someone's part (like mine, for instance), or what....

    --

  • If worst comes to worst, I think RedHat could buy Uruguay and the patent office themselves.
  • It appears that there may be some impropriety in the matter. Happily, the "exclusive supplier" in question, SuSE, operates in other places.

    Supposing the Uruguayan supplier is acting improperly, it would be a perfectly reasonable idea for Linux folk to "have a chat" with the nice folks at SuSE.

    If they are allowing suppliers to act improperly, then it might be proper to let SuSE know that this is not acceptable to people that aren't in Uruguay.

    For instance, if the situation is as suggested, it's reasonably likely that the local LUG may send a respectful letter to SuSE explaining how we might encourage members not to use SuSE's products.

  • I don't think it should be problem. They can have the exclusive rights to sell the Official Branded SuSE Box. (BTW: Is everything on the official SuSE CD under a free license? Or is it like older RH distros and includes some non-free stuff?) Other people should be able to make copies of the GPL/open source/free SuSE code, but marketing is a different issue. It's probably legally possible for SuSE to forbid other people to market products using their name. (Not that this would necessarily be a good idea.)

    --

  • I understand that many people believe vulgarity is automatic game for moderation, but I'd just like to add that I disagree. We're all humans, and expressing ourselves using vulgarity in a forum like this seems perfectly acceptable to me. I believe this because Slashdot discussions are more rough and truthful than they are professional and polite. On this basis, I agree that vulgarity is indeed acceptable if it's an effective way to get the point across. I think this was a good use of vulgarity. It surely struck a patriotic chord in my nerves :)

    </OFFTOPIC>
  • What I think they're worried about is that anyone else trying to sell anything with the "linux" name on it in their country will be banned. You'd have to call it something else. Unless you can wing enough power to force change, but that involves Big Corporations and Political Pressure.

  • Also what's interesting is the Dilbert comic at the bottom of that same page.

    The comic even has in it:
    "Redistribution in part or in whole is strictly prohibited"

    These guys just don't get it do they? =)
    --
  • I lived in Uruguay for two years, and I was quite impressed by their (lack) of IP law concerning software.

    At the time, I could walk into a number of legitimate businesses and "purchase" software for about $2.00US per disk. The disks, of course, were copies. This was totally legal. I obtained a ton of nice games. It was great. Then one of the businesses was almost shut down because the owner had sold xeroxed copies of manuals. While it was legal to make copies of programs, copying manuals was definitely illegal. His business put up posters showing Uncle Sam stepping on Uruguay. Even though I am from the US, I found this really amusing and even sympathized. The amount charged for software in countries like Uruguay is extremely disporportionate to the amount of money the average person earns. The US software industry, with MS at the helm, is an oppressor of less wealthy nations and peoples.

    Now, these jokers seem to be pulling some sort of scam in the that is the inverse of what I experienced. Perhaps the laws have swung in the opposite direction.

  • Suse is their supplier.

    If Suse were made aware of the situtation through numerous angry but polite letters, they might well reconsider doing business with that entity. The taint of LunuxTech's reputation could easilly spread to Suse in that region, undermining Suse's ability to sell their product via any vendor. This is something Suse has an interest in preventing, and they might be able to exert some pressure on LinuxTech to behave in a manner more appropriate to the Linux community.

    Of course, legal and "out-legal" action should continue in parallel.

    Has anyone considered a "rating" page for Linux companies? Something that would let the unititiated, or someone who has been on vacation for three weeks, know how well a particular entity is behaving vis-a-vis the Linux community? This would be less ... harsh ... than a blacklist, and would have the advantages of rewarding the good players rather than only punishing the vultures. This begs a whole series of questions, such as who would be doing the rating and how, and how complaints like this would be processed, how to avoid improper "astroturf" complaints by competitors against one another, etc.

    Thoughts?
  • Remember the story about the Linux trademark in Korea [linuxtoday.com]? Does anybody have an update on this?
  • Anybody can redistribute SuSE anywhere (well, most of it anyway), you just can't call it SuSE. Same thing for RedHat, Mandrake, etc.

    Anyway, it seems like a perfectly reasonable distribution deal to me. To ensure distribution and advertising, SuSE granted exclusive distribution rights to somebody. Happens all the time.
  • 2. Just because you've never heard of a Swiss company doesn't mean it isn't well known in Switzerland.

    I assume it's well-known in Switzerland, it's a swiss company. The question is whether it's well-known internationally. And the fact that I've never heard of it suggests it's not well-known outside its own area (obviously, I don't think that's concrete evidence).

    3. That's just begging the question. "Because they're evil, they shouldn't do this."

    As far as trademark goes, consider this: if you were starting a Linux company in a country, and realized you were in danger of somebody evil trademarking the name, what could you do to protect yourself? Can you initiate a trademark in Linus' name? Probably not. *Somebody* has to own the trademark, otherwise all Linux businesses are in danger. Ideally, this would be a non-profit, but I don't know the details of Uruguayan trademark law, and I doubt you do either.

    I haven't heard the LinuxTech side of this argument. I've heard the users' group side, and it isn't very well thought out. I'm just saying lets not shun and attack these folks until we actually have some real info.
  • ...I wonder what else they'll try to trademark. Might they trademark "KDE" and "Gnome" too? Or maybe, if they're really serious about this, could they change their names to "Linus Torvalds"? This will probably be a lesson learned to the offenders, after they go out of buisiness because noone will buy from them. Fuck off guys, the Linux community doesn't need or want people like you.

    In short, what these people are doing is PURE BS!

  • But then I realized that I had Uruguay confused with Paraguay. A quick look at the map cleared that up.
    I think these trademark issues that pop up around the globe are a great way to track the spread of linux. It's not really big in a country until someone thinks it would be profitable to corner the market right? Is anyone keeping a list of countries where this has happened and a date? In 3 years you could then make a movie where countries get colored in as someone tries to trademark linux. Speed it up enough and you can watch linux spread across the globe. This would be cool - assuming the trademark applications and such all get rejected - otherwise the film would be depressing.
    --Shoeboy
  • Back when the article about Windows 99 Beer in Germany was published, someone was complaining about how if this had been Linux, Slashdotters would be up in arms about it. Now it's happened again (I wonder what the outcome of the South Korean company was) and people are rightfully pissed.

    The difference? The category of trademark. Note that the company has asked for a trademark related to computer services. One assumes they'd try to market themselves as the owner of Linux, confusing people. This is what trademark law was designed to avoid. If they had asked for a trademark related to say a dance company or something, who would care? (NB: The somewhat made-up nature of Linux might make this a little questionable, IANAL - yet. So don't start playing games with Coke or Nike or Microsoft or somebody.) As long as the trademarks are in different fields of use, two companies can have identical names. That's why Windows 99 Beer is perfectly okay.

  • This company looks quite decent, actually. However, some of the sections look like copied&&translated text rather than original writing. I don't know if it's a word-for-word copy, but the FSF section on their site looks awfully familiar. Of course, much of this is probably due to the Babelfishery (I don't think the site was created by "The equipment of LinuxTECH.", for example :)).
  • That LinuxTECH is the Swiss (.ch) company to which the letter alluded, not the Uruguayan (.com.uy) company about which the letter complains.

    If you had read the letter, you wouldn't have made that mistake.

  • The boxed SuSE distro has printed docs, some non-redistributable software (IIRC), and support. None of this comes with the CD you press. If SuSE wants to grant a company the exclusive rights to resell the boxed SuSE distro in a particular country, they have every right (and possibly sense, given the size of the Uruguayan market for commercial Linux distros) to do so.
  • Is trademarking any different from corporate branding? If someone tried to trademark NikeLinux or CokeLinux, lawyers would be at your door the morning after they heard of it. Are Nike and Coke protected more because they cover several different markets (shoes/sports/clothing - softdrinks/sports/clothing), while Linux is "just an OS"?

    If Nike and Coke have special rights because they have a brand name, we should promote the fact that Linux has an assortment of geek clothing as well. The unique rise in production of stuffed penguins in the last ten years is not coincidental.

    Next, we take the bankrupt LinuxOne and turn them into our softdrink distribution company; 'LinuxOne, the refreshing Linux beverage.' PowerSolutions can sell our soda at Californian flea markets while giving away cds. Then come the promotional geek trading cards...

    I did have a serious question but it seems to have slipped away.
  • Again, what this company is doing is obviously wrong, and the vast majority of posters agree.

    And this would be the what? The "two wrongs make a right" philosophy? By advocating an ILLEGAL attack?

  • Linus is from finland

    "Suble Mind control? why do html buttons say submit?",
  • If you look at http://www.linuxtech.ch , you will see that some halfwits have been flaming them. They apparently have nothing to do with Linuxtech in Uruguay.
  • What did you base that statement on? Any facts? Or is it just a Troll?
    (no, I do not work for SuSE).
  • I used the formal Vd to further distance myself from the person I was addressing. Think about addressing someone using the archaic vos (Iberian, not Argentine) as though one were addressing the Pope or King to convey false stature. Consider the difference between a parent scolding a child and a banker asking you not to jump the queue. I didn't care to get too chummy with the twit I was engaging, but I didn't quite realize when I started that I was going to end up in the informal realm of palabrotas.

    The propio/proprio spelling error is one I'd swear I've made for twenty years running now. I think perhaps I've got a neuron crossed somewhere in the wetware. It took me a long time to fix *interphase/interface in English, or *supercede/supersede. Sometimes I just give up and add an alias in my editor to fix these.

    On dé/da, hey, even my English waxes toward the super-subjunctivated, as it were. :-)

  • When that hypothetical day arrives in which a second language with the tenth part of the capabilidad Vista in the authors dominates You whose works -- and whose cause -- we already discussed, perhaps because then putas will be able to say to four words on the good spelling. But now, nor it is happened to him. Go bad-mannered that is You who do not realize respect due to these dear gentlemen! I assure to him that benefit will have translated this news not by his proprio, but by You That is, it cállese the snout, ungrateful idiot!

    It didn't translate several swears (including puta), but the meaning shows through.
    ---
  • Don't worry, I (and I'm sure others) support making sure that any Tom, Dick, and Harry in *.* country that has trademarking, do not obtain an unfair trademark on an OpenSource project of any kind. Hiring lawyers is certainly a plan, but perhaps it'd be better to start a fund so that the local LUG can get a local lawyer (who will know local law better).

    I suspect that the moderator will likely be M2ed out of his or her priviledge of moderation. With, IMO, just cause.
    ---
  • Erhm, isn't it a bit wrong to advocate electronic terrorism or DoS attacks? Especially considering some of the bad press such things gives the Linux Community..

    Unless, of course, you meant "send them a nice message saying you do not support their actions" when you said "please, hit THIS site early and often."
    ---
  • Yes, this is offtopic, and I realize it will be moderated down quickly, but it deserves a bit more notice than the near automatic -1 moderation it recieved. The fat-time charlie online serial [warmann.com] Give it a read, if only because you won't be hearing from the author in the Slashdot forums anymore.

    And if you're an aspiring artist, perhaps you'll drop the fellow some mail. The serial is damn funny, but it would be even better with some fittingly surrealistic illustrations.

    I knew +1 was good for something. Hope it stays on the /. radar long enough to be seen, eh fat-time?
  • Folks take this with a bit of sarcasm. trickfish, I appologize for the flame ahead of time. My point is hopefully evident.

    Well, if eToys.com can own etoys.org, etoys.net, and even eToyssucks.com, shouldn't they buy up etoy.com as well since it is *close* to their name. Who cares if its another company...

    Yes, say if I ran www.linuxfarts.org, specializing in linux farts (of all things), then I *must* be the sole expert in linux farts. Since obviously we're the experts, no one else should be allowed to own a linuxfarts domain, because we're the experts and we should get all the traffic.

    Obviously can't market a .org name, because after all, Joe User who has an intrest in linux farts has an aversion to that kind of domain. And of course, if I left open a similar domain name, and competition gobbled it up, they would be looking at a compettetors web site instead of mine. And Joe User who is interested in linux farts certainly wouldn't want to see if there is any other information on linux farts, maybe do a search, or type in alternate endings. Maybe they have a better site than you... The "other team" is still concerned with linux farts... the question is, who has more *usable* information.

    Why does this really happen though? Because we're breading stupider users...Why are we breeding stupider users? Because we tell them stuff we know is a lie and we call it marketing. Stuff like, "AOL gives me stuff that I can't find anywhere else on the web." Or eventually "We've got better HOWTOs on how to properly use LinuxFarts..." Its just a big lie. We've wrecked internet1 and turned it into a really trendy version of the Home Shopping Network. God, I dread the day Universities make the mistake of opening up I2 to corporations (who will once again claim "for research purposes" until they figure out some way to market their ideas)

    Ok... so, that's my rant... a little discombobulated but that's my rant...
    I'm sorry you were the author of the message that triggered it trickfish, I understand your sentiment... as corporately warped as it is...

  • For me the most interesting thing is the way people are tying trade marks to domains.

    I work for a Management Consultant company looking at expanding into Internet Consultancy. We were just briefed by specialist IT lawyers in Aust to trademark ALL domain names to prevent Brand Erosion. With disputes over domain names going to court overhere and the fact that it is harder to buy a domain off (you have to buy the underlying business as well) a company or individual, trademareking a domain name has been seen as a short-cut to legally acquiring a domain name that was previously unavailable.

    I like Shakespear best - wasn't it something like lets kill all the lawyers?

  • okay, people, I'll go meta-moderate, just in case I get this one, but why is a post that:

    1. incorrectly states someone is trying to "copyright" (not trademark) Linux
    and
    2. Advocates attempting a DOS against them

    Moderated up as insightful? It's not really a troll, it's not really redundant, or anything, but plese, don't moderate this crap UP so that it appears at the top of the comments.

    --Kevin
    (sorry for being off topic)
  • We at UYLUG know that LINUX is a name that belongs to the community and its legal owner is Linus Torvalds. We applied registration to avoid improper trademark applications, as we resolved in our meetings and official acts since 1998. Both Linus Torvalds and Linux International are noticed about our application and our offer to transfer them the official proceedings. Heber Godoy - Andres Tarallo President - Secretary Uruguay Linux User Group
  • Mostly, the bad guys online give themselves away with everything they do. They try and hide it, but... you can just smell it. The lack of feeling for what a community is. The money-oriented thinking. The Microsoftisms in their HTML. Look at the Linux One pages [linuxone.com] for an example: the stench of ignorant corporate greed and personal small mindedness is hard to ignore.

    Well, LinuxTECH Uruguay may be evil for all I know, but... they sure don't smell bad. They come across like one of us. Their site design is nice and clean and quick. The biggest giveaway is their huge collection of links [linux.com.uy] - the bad guys don't link outside their own site in case you might reach another side of the story. Their news page [linux.com.uy] even includes a link to a Slashdot story - and often refers to GNU/Linux.

    I'm just convinced that these people are on our side. I hope this can be resolved to everyone's satisfaction soon.
    --

  • Re:Linus' take on this (Score:3)

    by mattdm (1931) on Thursday January 06 2000, @04:22PM (#1396051) Homepage
    You can't copyright a name. And trademark works on a per-country basis. I know that Linus holds the trademark in the US [uspto.gov]. (Fun to note this one [uspto.gov] though. Perfectly ok because operating systems aren't laundry detergent or toothpaste.) I believe that Linus also holds the trademark Linux in several other countries, but I'm not sure of details. Anyone?

    --

  • Jihad! Jihad! (Score:3)

    by Signal 11 (7608) on Thursday January 06 2000, @06:01PM (#1396052)
    OH MY GOD, somebody's trying to steal a trademark! LYNCH HIM!!!!! Eat hot rockets scum bag!

    So let me get this straight... geeks in general don't like lawyers, the legal system, ad nauseum, preferring to code instead. But while most NORMAL people could care less about another trademark battle, the geeks are out on jihad because somebody in a country I never even heard of is trying to trademark an operating system that the average person still doesn't even know about! I think the more obscure it is, the more geeks like to talk about it... =)

  • SuSE sells a distribution in a box. Though they don't have the rights to 99% of the software in that box (nor do they claim to), they have spent their money packaging all that software into a distribution. They own that distribution. If they want to make this Uruguayan LinuxTECH company the exclusive distributor of their product, they can. They aren't breaking the GPL: they still distribute source for any GPL'd software in their distro. (Same with other OSS licences.) They don't have an exclusive right to distribution of the non-SuSE software (i.e. I can sell Apache in Uruguay) within the distro, but they do have rights to the boxed distro itself.

  • Re:what the hell? (Score:3)

    by Tom Christiansen (54829) <tchrist@perl.com> on Thursday January 06 2000, @05:58PM (#1396055) Homepage
    Cuando llegue aquel día hipotético en que domine Vd un segundo idioma con la décima parte de la capabilidad vista en los autores cuyas obras--y cuya causa--ya discutimos, pues entonces tal vez podrá decir cuatro putas palabras sobre la buena ortografía. Pero ahora, ni se le ocurra. Vaya maleducado que es Vd que no se dé cuenta del respecto debido a estos estimados señores! Le aseguro que habrán traducido esta noticia no por su proprio beneficio, sino por Vd.

    O sea, cállese el hocico, idiota ingrato!

  • Their loss (Score:3)

    by MostlyHarmless (75501) <artdent&freeshell,org> on Thursday January 06 2000, @04:21PM (#1396056)
    Sure, they can go right ahead and try to trademark the name.

    Know what? They may even win. But to what avail? All serious Linux users will avoid them like the plague. This is very similar to the LinuxOne claim, except LinuxOne has a vast market of people who can't tell the difference and haven't hear all the bad pr surrounding them (or so they claim). On the other hand, this company is reselling a standardized distribution aimed at the existing Linux market, so they need all the good press they can get. In the Linux market, most of the purchases are made by technically educated people who probably read /. occasionally if not daily. The Uruguayan company has now lost a huge chunk of their market who will never want anything to do with them because of their animosity towards the Linux community.

    void recursion (void)
    {
    recursion();
    }
    while(1) printf ("infinite loop");
    if (true) printf ("Stupid sig quote");

  • Something similar happened in Sri Lanka (Score:3)

    by RuntimeError (132945) on Thursday January 06 2000, @05:50PM (#1396057)
    In Sri Lanka there is a TV station called MTV which stands for Maharaja Telivision. Then another TV station started broadcasting MTV as in Music Television. The Maharaja company obtained an interim injunction order banning MTV ( Music TV).

    However, when the case was finally heard, the Music TV people won.

    So I guess even if some rogue company tries to trademark Linux in Sri Lanka, the international trademark will prevail.

    I'll check on this and write a letter to my friends in LUG to, if possible, obtain a registration on behalf of Linus.

  • Not being a very big Law fanatic, especially not an Uruguayan law fanatic what I would like to know is what, if any impact this would have outside of Uruguay? Would this impact the Linux Community in such a way that at some point if these ppl are not stopped that it could hinder sales of or use of the Linux name internationally? I'm not saying lets just leave Uruguay hanging on it's own rope by any means. Personally I feel that there's not much to get all stirred up about. Now if this company started actually trying to oust the ULUG from their domains I'd expect to see full community support and also quite a large stir over the issue.

    But are we really looking into this all too far. There is one other patent pending on the Linux name that I know of by a laundry detergent company, yet there wasn't a large outcry about this. I think maybe this hits closer to home since they are trying to patent it on the Computer Industry level rather then on a level that is completely non-related. Suse can let this company have the exclusive right if they want so long as they provide the src for any GPL'd software within their distro as far as I know. I could be wrong.

    In the end I think they will either be denied or it just won't really matter. I'm sure this has been done in some other country by now. After all, now there are Win98 Cigarettes, but we didn't raise a stink about that. I know I got a good laugh about it.

  • It's not going away (Score:4)

    by trickfish (57639) on Thursday January 06 2000, @04:29PM (#1396059)
    It seems to me that this type of activity will not be going away soon. Better to be proactive now than to end up in litigation with morons like these guys (the ones trying to patent) later.

    IMPERATIVE:
    If you run a linux .org site, spend the $$ to register your .com and .net domains.

    Why? Because we aren't going to move linux further into the mainstream without marketing ourselves successfully to at least some degree, and all the Joe Users out there that can only type .com are going to end up at some other moron's site, not yours.

    We have to be sneakier than the other team, and grab domains first, as well as other pre-emptive marketing strikes. As for patents, I have no idea how to be proactive there. Lawyers speak up please!

  • Re: What can be trademarked (Score:4)

    by kevin805 (84623) on Thursday January 06 2000, @09:05PM (#1396060) Homepage
    Windows is a registered trademark, at least in the US, probably in every country with a trademark office (and MS is busy setting up the trademark offices for the rest of the world, I'm sure).

    I would guess that the reasoning is that even though "Windows" is a common term, it isn't a common term referring to computer software. You probably couldn't trademark "Operating System" as the name for your OS, or "Windows" as the name of your glass company, or Apple as the name of your fruit distribution company, but Apple as the name of a computer company is fine.

    Area of business is a key point in trademark disputes. Apple Corps (Apple Core?) sued Apple Computer for using the name Apple in relation to some sort of music software, because they are a music company. If I start, for example, Penguin Software, Penguin Books wouldn't have a claim against me for trademark infringment. If I planned on starting up a computer press after the company was larger, Penguin would be a bad choice for a name, because then Penguin books would have a claim against me, and I wouldn't be able to use "Penguin" in relation to books. (yes, there is a bookshelf next to this computer.)

    If you mean the way Kleenex and Xerox are tryign to avoid being diluted, I don't think this would apply to Linux, unless people started using Linux to refer to, e.g. freebsd. Linux is definitely trademarkable, in my opinion, but it shouldn't be granted to LinuxTech in Uruguay, because it isn't *their* trademark.

    --Kevin

  • What trademark registration REALLY means (Score:4)

    by P_Simm (97858) on Thursday January 06 2000, @06:50PM (#1396061)
    I JUST attended a class today where we were taught about trademarks, as well as other IP protection, and now I wish I had known about this beforehand so I could have asked about it. :)

    But, what I do know is that trademark registration, while useful, isn't as powerful as you might think. In fact, even if these guys get Linux trademarked in Uruguay, I'd go so far as to say they could still get beaten in court if they tried to block sale/distribution of the Linux OS.

    A trademark is protected even if it isn't registered, as long as it has the (tm) symbol on it. Registration simply provides a means by which one can publicly declare their claim over a trademark. This way, if someone else tries to use this trademark and pleads ignorance, you can simply say that they should have looked at the public TM database and are therefore in the wrong.

    Now, if LinuxTECH had come up with the name Linux on their own, and registered it for trademark in their country, then they'd probably retain trademark rights to 'Linux' if it went to court. But, in this case I'm sure it would be VERY simple to prove that these guys previously saw the Linux name, marked as a (tm), and willfully chose to duplicate and try to register it. If it can be proved that they saw Linux used as a trademark in their country, and yet willfully used the name in violation of those declared IP rights, then they should be found to have no rights over the Linux TM.

    This is all assuming that they even try to claim control over the TM and block the sale/dist of Linux at all - if not, then no one has to really care. But if they do, the only hard part would be proving that they saw 'Linux' used as a trademark in their country by someone else already. And if they were reselling distributions of Linux beforehand, it shouldn't be too hard to prove that they've had at least that much contact with Linux previously. :)

  • Confused complaints (Score:5)

    by Rilke (12096) on Thursday January 06 2000, @04:29PM (#1396062)
    This may indeed be an evil company, but the open letter just confuses things and makes some pretty dubious points IMHO. Some of this confusion might come from the English translation though.

    1. The first point seems pretty unique to Uruguay, and I don't really understand it. How did they get exclusive representation to SusE? Through the gov't, or through SusE??

    2. (they copied a "well known" swiss company's name)
    I've honestly never heard of the Swiss LinuxTech before. And I don't really see a problem with a Uruguayan company having the same name as a Swiss company.

    3. (the name "LinuxTECH" contains "Linux")
    I see nothing wrong with the name LinuxTECH. That's just a silly complaint. Lots of company names contain the name Linux or even Windows. For example "Linux Today", "Linux Journal", etc. And notice how complaints about this totally contradict the previous point.

    4. (they registered www.linux.com.uy, even though linux.org.uy existed).
    The same linux.org vs. linux.com exists in the root domain, and nobody cares. If I were starting a company down there, I'd certainly gobble up that domain.

    They Uruguayan users group might have some real complaints, but their open letter doesn't help their argument any. OTOH, LinuxTECH could easily just be a decent company who somehow pissed off a few members of a small users group. There's really no way to tell from this info.

    Also, trademarking "Linux" in a small country isn't evil in itself; they might just be protecting themselves against somebody else doing the same thing. It all depends on how they use it.

  • Link with legal info from REAL lawyers (Score:5)

    by P_Simm (97858) on Thursday January 06 2000, @06:58PM (#1396063)
    This link was given to me by the patent agent who lectured our class on IP rights, it's at the site for the company he works for and has some great summary IP info. It's a Canadian company, but from my understanding nearly all IP rights have been internationally agreed on. Even in cases where individual countries have their own jurisdiction, the rules are still the same. (Minor difference in North American patent rules vs everyone else, but that's all I know of.)

    Anyway, the link:

    http://www.adeco.com/general_info.htm

    Check out either the Trademarks link or the Acrobat file titled 'Intellectual Property Overview'.

  • Official SuSE Response (Score:5)

    by JamesS (134467) on Friday January 07 2000, @02:14AM (#1396064)
    We at SuSE are concerned about the Linux name issues worldwide. SuSE even works together with Linus Torvalds to mantain the rights of the name Linux. Therefore we will talk to the Uruguayan reseller and find a solution for this issue.

    The open letter sounds very agressive and desperate. Please don't forget: A "reseller" buys software packages and re-sells them. And that's it.

    Regards,
    James S
    SuSE Linux Ltd.

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