[consulting] Trademark policy

George D. DeMet demet at palantir.net
Wed Aug 12 01:55:54 UTC 2009


IANAL either, but I do have some experience with successfully defending
one's trademark.

The existence of .com domains that have the word "Drupal" in them does not
mean that the Drupal trademark has not been defended; the relevant
question is whether any of those domains are being used in a way that
could lead to consumer confusion about the source of the goods or services
being offered (e.g., do they improperly suggest any official connection
with Dries or the Drupal Association).  If you've run into any examples of
this, I would urge you to report them to the Drupal Association,
specifically Larry Garfield.

The Drupal trademark is and has been successfully policed, and I don't
think a credible argument can be made that it has either been abandoned or
that it is so widely used that it has lost all distinctiveness to the
common person.  Consider that the word "Kleenex", which is widely used as
a generic word for facial tissue, still enjoys trademark protection in the
United States.

The point that I was making before was that while I think it's important
that Dries and/or the Drupal Association establish some clear policies
with regard to the Drupal trademark, the fact that it is a registered mark
in the United States confers some rights that exist even in the absence of
said policies.

Tom Geller wrote:
> Evan Leibovitch <evan at telly.org> writes:
>
>  > First off, having the trademark means having to defend it.
>
> That's why I doubt the current defensiblility of the Drupal trademark
> -- it has a history of non-defense. The thousands of *drupal*.com
> domains comprise one damning piece of evidence.
>
> IAANAL, though.
>
> ---
>            Tom Geller  *  Oberlin, Ohio  *  415-317-1805
>               Writer/Editor * http://www.tomgeller.com
>      articles, marketing, training materials, user guides, books
>
>
>
>
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