Editorial

Who Owns It?

Article from Issue 137/2012

Author(s): Joe Casad

Trademarks receive much less media attention than patents or copyrights – at least in open source circles – but it looks like the trademark buzz might be heating up again with the recent
news that a company in China called Proview owns the name “iPad” and is preparing to throw down with Apple over the use of it. The fact that iPads are actually made in China adds urgency to this problem, with the company threatening to stop all exports until Apple settles.

Trademarks receive much less media attention than patents or copyrights – at least in open source circles – but it looks like the trademark buzz might be heating up again with the recent news that a company in China called Proview owns the name “iPad” and is preparing to throw down with Apple over the use of it. The fact that iPads are actually made in China adds urgency to this problem, with the company threatening to stop all exports until Apple settles. Like other intellectual property concepts, trademark issues can vary from the obvious to the arcane. You might think that vendors would strive for clarity and avoid the nebulous, undefined spaces that lurk within the IP landscape, but it seems that the companies with the largest and most powerful legal teams often intentionally seek out the gray areas and lay claim to no man’s land just to maximize the boundaries of their ownership.

Buy this article as PDF

Express-Checkout as PDF

Price $2.95
(incl. VAT)

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES

SUBSCRIPTIONS

Print Subs

Digisubs

TABLET & SMARTPHONE APPS

US / Canada

UK / Australia

Related content

Fedora Jumps into the Trademark Guidelines Ring

Where Fedora is, so do they stand: shortly after openSUSE announced its own trademark guidelines, Fedora is coming up with its own variation.

more »
Software Freedom Day: Freedom, Control and Responsibility

more »
Mobile Devices are Long-term Key for Chrome OS and Android

Google CEO Eric Schmidt shed some light on the company's plans for Chrome OS in tablets and mobile devices at the Atmosphere Cloud Computing Summit.

more »
Nagios Founder Comments on Icinga Fork

Nagios Enterprises founder and Nagios maintainer Ethan Galstad has admitted to development bottlenecks in his project and recognizes that Nagios developers want a stronger participation in the Icinga fork project. Nevertheless, he's disappointed that Icinga didn't engage with him before they struck off on their own.

more »
FSF Petitions Against iPad Use of DRM

The iPad presented in San Francisco by Apple chief Steve Jobs has enraged the Free Software Foundation (FSF). It seems Apple is increasingly compromising user freedom by imposing Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) on the tablet.

more »

comments powered by Disqus

Visit Our Shop

Trial Subscription

Digital Subscription

Subscribe

Direct Download

Read full article as PDF:

003-003_comment.pdf (350.78 kB)

News

The PinePhone Pre-Order has Arrived

Anyone looking to finally get their hands on an early release of the PinePhone can do so as of November 15.
Microsoft Edge Coming to Linux

Browser

Microsoft is bringing it’s new Chromium-based Edge browser to Linux.
Open Invention Network Backs Gnome Project Against Patent Troll

OIN has deployed its legal team to find prior art.
Fedora 31 Released

The latest version of Fedora comes with new packages and libraries.
openSUSE OBS Can Now Build Windows WSL Images

openSUSE enables developers to build their own WSL distributions.
Sudo Vulnerability

A vulnerability in the sudo package gives sudo users more powers than they deserve.
The Art of PostgreSQL

The Art of PostgreSQL by Dimitri Fontaine is now available.
Red Hat Announces CentOS Stream

New distro will provide an upstream test bed for RHEL.
Linus Torvalds Agrees to Kernel Lockdown

The feature will let developers restrict root access to the kernel.
Richard Stallman Resigns from Free Software Foundation

GNU founder came under fire for comments made on an internal MIT mailing list