[WikiEN-l] Fighting over (R) and (tm) symbols

[Andrew Gray]

On 31/08/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
>
> On 31 Aug 2006, at 10:19, David Gerard wrote:
>
> > On 31/08/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
> >
> >> It might be different in English law.
> >> If you don't enforce your trademark here,
> >> I think you lose it.
> >
> >
> > Business: "We demand you cover your article in (R) and (tm)."
> > Wikipedia: "No. Bloody obvious academic fair use, any legal threat
> > would be obviously frivolous and probably sanctionable."
> > Business: "Well, we tried."
>
> I think trying may be enough in English law.
>
> Usually a big document will just say
> "All trademarks acknowledged" once.
> Perhaps Wikipedia could say that on a
> page somewhere.

FWIW, there's a couple of images which have text to the extent of:

"This image, and the work it represents, is in the public domain.
However, it is covered by trademark laws in some jusrisdictions, and
whilst it is free from any copyright restrictions, there may be legal
issues with reusing it in certain contexts"

Image trademarks are a bit of an odd case compared to CocaColaTM
scattered across the text, but I'm still not entirely sure what to do
with them.

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk