Subject: Re: LAST CALL COMMENT CLARIFICATIONS IPR statement?

From: "Douglas E. Engert" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2003 12:52:22 -0500

Ken Raeburn wrote:
> 
> There is a trademark notice buried in the end notes, marked with [TM]
> where the rest of the notes are numbered.  There is no [TM] in the
> main body of the text.

This is the text I assume you are refering to:

   [TM] Project Athena, Athena, and Kerberos are trademarks of the
   Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). No commercial use of
   these trademarks may be made without prior written permission of MIT.

RFC 1510 has in the overview:

   Project Athena, Athena, Athena MUSE, Discuss, Hesiod, Kerberos,
   Moira, and Zephyr are trademarks of the Massachusetts Institute of
   Technology (MIT).  No commercial use of these trademarks may be made
   without prior written permission of MIT.

> The trademark notice should be more prominent, probably in its own
> section.  I don't know if trademarks require any specific IPR notices.

RFC 2026 does not mention trademark or TM, but talks about copyrights.

The use of the trademark did not have a problem with RFC 1510, I don't see any
any reason why it would have a problem now. 

Searching for the "Kerberos" trademark at http://www.uspto.gov/main/profiles/trademarker.htm
shows that "KERBEROS" Serial number 74251246 was Filed on 2/2/1992,
but then abandoned on 4/11/1994. "Athena" 74251248 appears to still be live. 

The use of "Kerberos" in comercial use does not need to use "Athena". 
So there should be no problem with implementing "Kerberos" from this draft,
even for comercial use. 

> 
> IPR notices are on the id-nits checklist, which all submitted RFCs are
> required to conform to, with both the ADs and WG chairs responsible
> for verifying compliance (each before submitting the document to the
> next level).  So, if specific text is in fact needed, it would be a
> show-stopper.

So if anything the term "Kerberos" could be removed from the [TM] Paragraph,
but I don't see any harm in leaving it in, as it was a trademark at one time. 

Since three of the authors of the draft are from MIT, and the forth used to be,
would any of them consider asking the MIT lawyers if this statement is correct,
and if it needs to be in the document?

> Ken

-- 

 Douglas E. Engert  <[email-masked]>
 Argonne National Laboratory
 9700 South Cass Avenue
 Argonne, Illinois  60439 
 (630) 252-5444

---

From: Tom Yu <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2003 15:28:31 -0400

>>>>> "deengert" == Douglas E Engert <[email-masked]> writes:

deengert> Searching for the "Kerberos" trademark at
deengert> http://www.uspto.gov/main/profiles/trademarker.htm shows
deengert> that "KERBEROS" Serial number 74251246 was Filed on
deengert> 2/2/1992, but then abandoned on 4/11/1994. "Athena" 74251248
deengert> appears to still be live.

It was abandoned subsequent to opposition filed by another party.

deengert> The use of "Kerberos" in comercial use does not need to use
deengert> "Athena".  So there should be no problem with implementing
deengert> "Kerberos" from this draft, even for comercial use.

It is still a trademark of MIT.  It is not registered in the US.  The
status of the Kerberos trademark is kind of complicated, and I don't
recall the precise details.  As far as I know, MIT does not object to
the use of the trademark in a descriptive capacity... e.g., our README
file on the krb5 distribution says:

    Project Athena, Athena, Athena MUSE, Discuss, Hesiod, Kerberos, Moira,
    and Zephyr are trademarks of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    (MIT).  No commercial use of these trademarks may be made without
    prior written permission of MIT.

    "Commercial use" means use of a name in a product or other for-profit
    manner.  It does NOT prevent a commercial firm from referring to the
    MIT trademarks in order to convey information (although in doing so,
    recognition of their trademark status should be given).

Note the second paragraph.

---Tom