Joann Ransom <jransom@library.org.nz>
George and I have been discussing the issue of Koha trademarks. We know that Koha has been registered in the USA by Liblime, and that the EU registration is being signed over to HLT, but what about the rest of world?
Last I checked, it's not an EU registration. It is merely an application for a Community Trade Mark. [...]
What is stop any ratbag vendor setting up anywhere in the world from registering Koha in the same way that Liblime and Biblibre did?
As I have discovered to my cost, the only thing that stops them is the application process and that is a slow and expensive thing. If Koha is not present in a market, why shouldn't someone else be able to use the name? Arguably, Koha is now worldwide, though. Hope that explains, -- MJ Ray (slef) Webmaster and LMS developer at | software www.software.coop http://mjr.towers.org.uk | .... co IMO only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html | .... op