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

[Robert Scott Horning]

Delirium wrote:

> Robert Scott Horning wrote:
>
>> I'm not sure where you are looking, but any time you use a trademark 
>> that isn't yours, you need to put a disclaimer in the advertisement 
>> or documentation that the trademark belongs to somebody else.
>
>
> That's just preposterous, and there is no such legal requirement.  If 
> there were, we'd be already violating it on mediawiki.org, which uses 
> the term "MySQL" numerous times without ever once disclaiming that 
> "MySQL(r) is a registered trademark of MySQL AB".
>
> -Mark
>
Perhaps "we" are violating trademark law here?  Before you claim flat 
out there is no legal requirement, make sure you can quote chapter and 
verse on the subject.  I'm also claiming that out of simple respect when 
it is a registered trademark, we should link to or at least make a 
simple disclaimer on similar pages.  See, for example, a disclaimer I 
put on the 1911 Encyclopaedia Project for similar sorts of trademark usage:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica%3AProject_Disclaimer

Perhaps I'm being paranoid about this, but in this case I'm 
acknowledging that the trademark does in fact exist, and that it is not 
owned by the Wikimedia Foundation.  On Wikipedia, when there are 
trademarks being used, it is usually directly tied to the article about 
the company who owns the trademark, with even web links to that company 
being very typical.

I know this is naval gazing, but if we are getting off in a huff about 
somebody abusing a Wikimedia Foundation trademark, maybe we need to also 
need to improve the trademark standard usage on Wikimedia projects as well?

-- 
Robert Scott Horning