[Foundation-l] Trademark violation of our 'MediaWiki' mark

[Kelly Martin]

On 10/28/05, Arne Klempert <klempert at gmail.com> wrote:
> The text is a little bit confusing ("the new product" might sound like
> it's their product), but I see no reason for your "trying to induce"
> thing. And I really don't see any trademark violation here. Of course
> we have to defend our trademarks but we also should avoid trademark
> paranoia.

Don't take this advice; it's absolutely bad.

You absolutely must defend the mark by requiring them to insert
"MediaWiki is a trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation" or other such
content in that advert.  Failure to do so will dilute the mark.  This
is a trademark violation in the sense that they used a trademark not
belonging to them to advertise a commercial service without
acknowledging that it's not their mark.

There's no such thing as "trademark paranoia".  Failure to defend the
mark against dilution will quite simply cause the loss of the mark.

Kelly