Hi,
I hope this is the right place for such a question.
While I was discussing a free software project with a friend, we came to the question how to name our project.
The problem: It's nearly impossible to find a name that isn't used somewhere else. And even if the name is absolutely new, you can't be sure if someone thinks that it sounds similar to something else. Now, how can someone be sure to choose a name for a project and that I won't be sued for it? As there were a lot of strange lawsuits because of project names (e.g. the mobilix-case), it seems nearly impossible to be safe with it.
Any suggestions about that?
Am Thursday, dem 01. Dec 2005 schrieb Hanno Böck:
I hope this is the right place for such a question.
While I was discussing a free software project with a friend, we came to the question how to name our project.
The problem: It's nearly impossible to find a name that isn't used somewhere else.
Huh? There are so many letters in the alphabeth...
And even if the name is absolutely new, you can't be sure if someone thinks that it sounds similar to something else.
Now, how can someone be sure to choose a name for a project and that I won't be sued for it? As there were a lot of strange lawsuits because of project names (e.g. the mobilix-case), it seems nearly impossible to be safe with it.
I think the mobilix people wanted it to sound similar. Well, even if something sounds similar, it's always a question, wheather somebody sues you or not.
If you want your program to sound similar to something from a completely different field, you could also ask for permission. Maybe the others even see it as a kind of advertisement for their product - who knows.
Any suggestions about that?
gooooogle...
On Thu, 2005-12-01 at 17:47 +0100, Hanno Böck wrote:
Hi,
I hope this is the right place for such a question.
While I was discussing a free software project with a friend, we came to the question how to name our project.
The problem: It's nearly impossible to find a name that isn't used somewhere else. And even if the name is absolutely new, you can't be sure if someone thinks that it sounds similar to something else. Now, how can someone be sure to choose a name for a project and that I won't be sued for it? As there were a lot of strange lawsuits because of project names (e.g. the mobilix-case), it seems nearly impossible to be safe with it.
Any suggestions about that?
1. don't worry straight away about finding a name
2. set up a "contest" for finding a name, and include your worried in the rules.
It certainly helps, in order to give smart suggestions, to know some information, like what does your Free Software project do?
Rui
Hi Hanno,
On Thu, Dec 01, 2005 at 05:47:12PM +0100, Hanno Böck wrote:
I hope this is the right place for such a question.
sure, this is open discussion. Note that if you wanted to ask in German, fsfe-de@ would be another place for questions like this. http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-de
The problem: It's nearly impossible to find a name that isn't used somewhere else.
Actually that is not so hard, one of my favorites links is http://www.dwheeler.com/totro.html Then you can always use an animal or a word in a different language to construct something new and cannot be used easily as a trademark.
And even if the name is absolutely new, you can't be sure if someone thinks that it sounds similar to something else.
It generally is okay to have a sound like something else. The question is: Would a reasonable person find you infringing a trademark? Not all words can be a trademark alone, general words like "book", usually cannot.
Now, how can someone be sure to choose a name for a project and that I won't be sued for it?
Suing can occur anytime even without a cause, there is not absolute certainty. You can only get a reasonable ground.
First try a search engine to see if the term is already used. Secondly think about commercial projects (Free Software or not) that use similiar names; you want to have a distance for this. Third: (optional) get a written statment by a laywer to raise chances. Lawyers, like you, can lookup trademark databases. And they can give some sort of guarantee when they do it for money and in writing.
As there were a lot of strange lawsuits because of project names (e.g. the mobilix-case), it seems nearly impossible to be safe with it.
Any suggestions about that?
Act in good faith, use at least setp 1 and 2 described above.
Bernhard