Joomla trademark

Elpie · Post by **Elpie** » Sun Apr 02, 2006 7:36 am

Can anyone from the incorporation tell me if the registering of the Joomla trademark (Trade Mark : 1073509) in Australia is being done on behalf of OSM please? If so, what are the plans for allowing any of us to use the word on our sites when we are promoting our work? The trademark ends with, "provision of the aforementioned services over a global computer network or any other communications network of any kind" which seems to imply that Joomla cannot be used anywhere on the Net without running into legal problems.

Post by **manuman** » Sun Apr 02, 2006 1:40 pm

I'm unaware of this... will find out what I can tomorrow and let you know.

Cheers
Shayne

brian · Post by **brian** » Sun Apr 02, 2006 1:52 pm

Mmh very interesting the trademark application was lodged the day after we announced the name joomla and to the best of my knowledge it was not done by anyone involved in Joomla or OSM

Brian

Elpie · Post by **Elpie** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 12:07 am

Blast! I was hoping you were NOT going to say that!

The owner is a lawyer and his site uses Joomla, so I was hoping he was doing this on behalf of OSM. The implications are not good otherwise. I am not sure how enforceable this "global computer network" inclusion is as trademarks are on a per country basis, but even so, having a site viewable in Australia and offering services that include Joomla there would be infringing on the trademark. Whether a legal statement that Joomla is a trademark of xyz but does not relate to Joomla the cms would wash, I just dont know. Might pay to check with the lawyers guys.

Edit: I note the trademark comes into effect in July.

Post by **masterchief** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 4:07 am

I just want to confirm that this trademark application has been taken been taken out of behalf of and as a donation to Joomla (thankyou).

If anyone has any concerns like this I suggest you use the contact us form on the OSM site rather than posting open questions/speculation on the forums.

On matters of trademark rules/enforcement, etc, that is something that is still in the melting pot and is in need of much thoughtful and balanced consideration, and obviously legal advice which I'm sure the SFLC and others are more than adequately capable of providing at the appropriate time.

Elpie · Post by **Elpie** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 6:02 am

Excuse me Andrew - what speculation? I asked two questions only, and received response from two core team members, one of whom is a director of OSM. I would have asked OSM directly but last time I looked there was no contact form on the site. There is now, I can see that, but without any notice on the forum saying that OSM/Joomla matters are to be directed there I was not aware that this is how you prefer to have communication. If I had asked OSM directly, how would that have given me any different response when clearly at least one of the directors was not aware of this donation. I asked my question in the most appropriate forum, I did not put it into a general discussion area, nor did I think that public information needed to be kept off forum. The trademark application and setting up of OSM started last September. The trademark comes into force in July - which only gives business people three months in which to find out how the trademark will be allowed to be used and adjust their business practices accordingly. In a business cycle, this is a very short window of time.

Post by **masterchief** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 6:30 am

Sorry, I was mixing your first and second post. Indeed, you were only speculating (where my use of speculation does not carry any insidious tone, rather, guess: a message expressing an opinion based on incomplete evidence) about the intent of the applicant in your second posting. He's quite a nice chap - good taste in music.

As for the rest, more information will be available when it becomes available (if that makes sense) because others are more learned as to where this process is up to than I (we don't all know everything about each other at any moment in time - Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle).

mixed · Post by **mixed** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 11:17 am

Hi there

I thought I should say hello and reassure anyone reading this post that I applied to register the Joomla trademark in Australia to help maintain the integrity of the brand in the country where I am based. I briefly discussed it with Andrew about the same time as this post: http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic ... l#msg25957

I have been a longtime user of Debian and as an IP lawyer was concerned to see that the brand wasn't hijacked while the Open Source Matters, Inc organisation was being finalised. So I raised the issue and took steps to protect the brand while the Core Devs had other issues to deal with and were finalising the OSM structure. (BTW the Debian TM policy is at http://www.debian.org/News/1998/19980306a - but OSM may wish to take a different approach).

Anyway, with the news that OSM has been constituted as a not-for-profit we can now transfer the trade mark as planned. We were pleased to donate the time and pay the $420 in government fees to secure the mark as a small token of our appreciation for all the hard work the Core Devs and other community members have put into creating such a fantastic product!

The assignment of the mark should be finalised in the next few days.

AmyStephen · Post by **AmyStephen** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 12:28 pm

How awsome of you to do this! What a friend you are to our community. Much appreciated. Amy

Elpie · Post by **Elpie** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 1:11 am

Thanks mixed - I was hoping that this was the case. I first asked about the trademark last September - at the time, if you remember, there were a number of discussions going on about how Joomla could be protected. I've been watching and waiting to see what happened about the mark you registered, but as time is getting close now to it being activated I was getting a little concerned.

Debian's trademark use rules are similar to a number of organisations and prohibits the use of the mark in domain names not owned by them. If this was to be the approach OSM took, there are a lot of people who need to take advice over their prior use rights. There are many people for whom complying with a trademark is not an issue, but for those of us in business, three months will go very quickly and I hope we don't have to live with uncertainty for too long.

It is reassuring that the registration of this mark is for OSM (and a great gesture on your part). Thanks for posting.

eyezberg · Post by **eyezberg** » Fri Jul 07, 2006 4:12 pm

Any news on this yet?
[quote="Elpie"]...the trademark comes into force in July...[/quote] which is now, and [quote="mixed"]...The assignment of the mark should be finalised in the next few days....[/quote]is there anything available for reading somewhere about this? what about Europe and the US?
thanks

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