[Koha] Koha Trademarks

[MJ Ray]

"Thomas Dukleth" <kohalist at agogme.com> wrote:
> 3.  JAVA EXAMPLE.
>
> I do not know of any specific OpenJDK trademark licensing terms. [...]

http://openjdk.java.net/legal/openjdk-trademark-notice.html

> What licenses are available from the current Koha trademark holders for
> interested parties to set up such community websites using Koha as part of
> the name for strictly communitarian purposes?

http://koha.org/about/logos/logos-for-download

"You are welcome to download and use these logos/graphics for the
promotion and publicity of the Koha Library System. You may not use
them for any other purpose.

    * However, please do not use the Koha logo as your company logo,
although you are welcome to use it alongside your company logo for
publicity materials.
    * It is fine to display the Koha logo on your Koha installations,
but please do not use the Koha logo (or favicon) as the main logo on a
corporate website."

I think that's about all I found so far.

[ On Fri, May 22, 2009 9:44 pm, MJ Ray wrote: ]
> > That's fine for BibLibre.  It's much harder for anyone to use the mark
> > against it now.  Sadly, commercial trademark infringement doesn't need
> > the holder to act for it to cause problems any more,
>
> How are problems caused for commercial trademark infringement currently
> without action by the trademark holder?

Thanks to international treaties (damn you WTO!), trademark and
copyright law has slowly moved from the civil law into criminal law.

In my home country, England, I think the latest law is the Copyright,
Etc. And Trade Marks (Offences And Enforcement) Act 2002.  Section 4
of the notes at
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2002/en/ukpgaen_20020025_en_1 explains
the situation:-

  "In general, intellectual property laws give private rights that can
  be enforced by the owners of the rights using civil remedies. In
  addition, criminal offences have been provided in relation to the
  making for sale or hire or dealing with the following types of
  illegal material: [...] Goods, packaging or labels bearing a trade
  mark that has been applied without the consent of the trade mark
  owner"

Civil law usually requires action by the trademark holder, whereas
criminal law only needs some jobsworth in the state to act.

And yes, those jobsworths exist.  There's a Times report where one
asked Mozilla to change their licence so they could start acting
against all those people copying Firefox without specific permission:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article733264.ece

Hope that explains,
-- 
MJ Ray (slef).  LMS developer and supporter for a small, friendly
worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
(Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237