[asterisk-biz] Open letter to digium, asterisk developers and consultants

[Matthew Rubenstein]

On Mon, 2008-06-09 at 18:16 -0400, David Boyd wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-06-09 at 17:14 -0400, Matthew Rubenstein wrote:

> > 	However, I'm pretty sure that this has been resolved in the courts.
> > Even though it's HW, not SW, the "100% IBM Compatible" PC clone
> > marketing in the 1980s comes to mind. The HW example is probably an even
> > stronger case, though perhaps the greater mutability of SW than HW, and
> > the GPL that is designed to foster that mutability and sharing of SW,
> > and the lack of patents on the SW (which did encumber the IBM PC) all
> > make an even stronger case for using the word "Asterisk" to compete with
> > Digium, as long as "Asterisk" is used to identify the Digium product,
> > and not misleadingly to identify the competing product. The trademark
> > law takes into account that consumers understand English, and that the
> > trademark is not some kind of hypnotic mind control that makes the
> > consumer buy no matter what context it's used in.


> I thought that IBM released the design of the IBM pc to the world, and
> they never tried to control the expansion. If true then the argument
> doesn't support the use of Asterisk in the "Fair" manner that you
> stated.
> 
> Now, to be fair, they probably didn't think that anyone would be able
> to make use of the design quite so rapidly :)

	We're not talking about the (engineering) design, we're talking about
the trademark. I'm pretty sure that IBM protects the "IBM" trademark
viciously wherever possible.


> Dave
-- 

(C) Matthew Rubenstein