Subject: RE: On not using (r) and (tm)

From: "Christian Huitema" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 20:50:32 -0800

Way back when we were writing RFC 1602, we only paid cursory attention
to trademarks as they relate to standards. (DNS was another issue.)
Trademarks are specialized by trade and by locales. Two different
companies can hold trademarks for Apple Computers and Apple records. Two
different companies can hold trademarks for Safeway supermarkets in
England and in the USA. Since Internet standards are global in nature,
it is probably inappropriate to quote that a particular name is a
trademark of a particular company without specifying a specific trade
domain and a specific locale.

-- Christian Huitema

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From: John Levine <[email-masked]>
Date: 7 Feb 2005 05:32:00 -0000

> Since Internet standards are global in nature, it is probably
> inappropriate to quote that a particular name is a trademark of a
> particular company without specifying a specific trade domain and a
> specific locale.

We can go as far into this swamp as we want, but I don't think it's a
good idea to do so.  Familiar trademarks are typically registered in
dozens of countries all over the world, and at least in the US there's
a category of "famous" trademark which has a significant degree of
protection outside of its nominal domain.

The reason that one puts the R in a circle or other notices is to tell
people that you have registered it.  The reason to do so is that it's
easier to win infringement damages if you can show that the infringer
knew or should have known that it was your trademark, and R in a
circle is presumed to be notice.

Since we are software guys rather than lawyers, and it's vanishingly
unlikely that any IETF document could infringe any trademark because
the documents are neither products nor services, I propose that we
don't try to deal with any of this.

If you or your employer want to tell people that you have a trademark,
it's quite adequate to say that FOO is a registered trademark of
Foocorp.  In the unlikely case that anyone cares, he can contact
Foocorp to find out what and where the trademark claims on that name
are.

Regards,
John Levine, [email-masked], Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, Mayor
"I dropped the toothpaste", said Tom, crestfallenly.

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From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 00:50:52 -0500

>Foocorp to find out what and where the trademark claims on that name

That is in fact what we're trying to define how to do.  An author of a 
document wanted to insert such a notice in an RFC.  3667 Section 3.6
says that trademark data should be submitted the same was as other IPR 
claims.  But we also have a policy against putting any IPR claims in 
RFCs; thus, the notice you suggest is against the rules.

Should it be?  That's what we're here to decide.  People want to assert 
certain trademark rights; we need to define how that should be done.

		--Prof. Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb

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From: "John R Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 7 Feb 2005 01:20:18 -0500

> But we also have a policy against putting any IPR claims in

Plan A: other people's trademarks aren't our problem, assertion or not
in IETF docs doesn't materially affect trademark rights, so forget it.

Plan B (only if Plan A makes significant numbers of employers forbid
employees to write IETF docs): permit sentences of the form "FOO is a
registered trademark of Foocorp" or "FOO is claimed as a trademark by
Foocorp" in with the boilerplate.

Regards,
John Levine, [email-masked], Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://iecc.com/johnl, Mayor
"I dropped the toothpaste", said Tom, crestfallenly.

PS: IETF Secretariat is a registered trademark of CNRI.