Re: [Foundation-l] Wiki trademark issue for ZH Wikipedia in mainland China

Hi, There are some things different between Chinese characters and English word. Every Chinese character has its own meaning. When we translate a foriegn language into Chinese, sometimes we do it by meaning, but more often we use characters with similar pronunciation for translation. Wiki is a generic name, so it can't be a trade mark. In Chinese sphere, wiki can be translate in many ways. Such as 維基 (now all the Wikimedia projects in Chinese language, the first one pronunces as "wei", and the second pronunces as "gee"), 圍紀(first "wei", second "gee"), and 維客(first "wei" , second "ke")etc. 維基 is one of translations of the word "wiki", and it was chosen by Chinese Wikipedians to be the only name of Chinese Wikipedia. Before Chinese Wikipedian's choosing 維基 as the name, there was no famous name of wiki technology. The problem is "if we don't register 維基, the Chinese Wikipedia will face the challenge of changing its name (in Chinese)". Wikipedia is one word, but 維基百科 have 4 characters. In Chinese text trade mark, the government protect the usage of charater singly.When someone registers 維基, other people can't use 維基 in their own trade mark. So the situation is not the same. THD