> common law tradmark rights are acquired automatically - but the name is pretty generic I was wondering about that, because there are obviously many open sour

> common law tradmark rights are acquired automatically - but the name is pretty generic I was wondering about that, because there are obviously many open source projects out there who share a name, some owned by companies, some by individuals. Here's a Google GitHub Page that talks about OSS trademarking in general: https://google.github.io/opencasebook/trademarks/#common-law-trademarks https://google.github.io/opencasebook/trademarks/#common-law... > Primarily, an unregistered mark must be: (1) used in commerce, and (2) used prior to the alleged trademark infringement. It may be counterintuitive that the “use in commerce” requirement does not necessarily mean a profitable or profit-seeking use. In fact, as the following case clarifies, the term “use in commerce” is used as a reference to Congress’s authority to regulate trademarks under the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause rather than an intent to limit trademarks to profit-making activity. Where a developer released open source software under the name Coolmail, the court rejected the argument that the lack of direct profit from releasing software under the GNU General Public License rendered the original Coolmail name unenforceable as a trademark, holding that distributing software for end-users over the Internet satisfies the “use in commerce” requirement.