5 ms·

Can you trademark open source project names?

• pmh 12y ago
  I think so, yes. See Iceweasel[0], the custom Debian build of Firefox. I'm not sure that you'd be successful in using trademark law in this particular scenario though. [0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation_software_rebranded_by_the_Debian_project#Iceweasel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation_software_re...
• JohnTHaller 12y ago
  Absolutely. Mozilla, Firefox, OpenOffice, Apache, Debian, etc are all registered trademarks and can not be used by others without permission.
  • natch 12y ago
    And most famously Linux: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:88wh2t.2.232 http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:88w...
• donaldr3 12y ago
  Yes, in fact GPLv3 specifically deals with trademarks in section 7e).
• chx 12y ago
  Hell yeah. Drupal trademark policy http://drupal.com/trademark http://drupal.com/trademark Apache trademark policy http://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/ http://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/ Eclipse trademark policy https://www.eclipse.org/legal/logo_guidelines.php https://www.eclipse.org/legal/logo_guidelines.php KDE® and the K Desktop Environment® logo are registered trademarks of KDE e.V. can't find the policy right now.