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AFAIK trademarks don't work that way. You can "use" a trademark in a text or computer program more or less freely. What you can't do is do business under the tr
by glesica 11y ago
AFAIK trademarks don't work that way. You can "use" a trademark in a text or computer program more or less freely. What you can't do is do business under the trademarked name, or offer a competing (or substantially similar) product for sale that uses the trademarked name. Trademarks aren't so much about "IP protection" as they are about preventing consumer confusion, thus the standards are different. IANAL.
- cmdrfred 11y agoMakes sense, then maybe this would prevent him from listing slack anywhere on the repository as it might confuse users that this is a legitimate client.
- cookiecaper 11y agoIt's a matter of degree. CentOS infamously chose to refer to Red Hat as "a prominent North American Linux vendor" and completely deleted the term "Red Hat" from everything out of an abundance of caution after receiving threats from Red Hat's lawyers, but that's probably overboard. It's generally allowed to use trademarks as "nominative uses", i.e., in direct reference to another's product that's not designed to create confusion. He would probably be fine to put in his README something like "An open implementation of the chat API provided by Slack". He definitely shouldn't use the term "Slack" in the name of the repo. Like most non-flagrant potential IP violations, no one can really say for sure until a court hears the case and makes a judgement as to whether the use is fair or unfair, or likely to cause confusion among consumers or not. IANAL.
- dragonwriter 11y agoTrademarks are about IP protection, but the exclusive right in the mark -- the thing that is property -- is the right to use the mark to market products in a particular domain.