trademark

[Johannes Ernst]

At some point in the future, it is conceivable that we'd like to have  
an official Yadis conformance test suite and external conformance  
test organization (like many standards organizations have). About the  
only leverage such a process would have is that it would grant (or  
deny) implementors the use of the protocol name, in our case -- for  
better or worse -- Yadis.

In order to do that, one needs to invoke trademark law I believe ...  
and for doing so, we (i.e. the community) would have to
1) start indicating to the world that we consider Yadis to be a  
trademark and not a generic term, i.e. write YadisTM in many places,  
e.g. the front page of the wiki, and preferably
2) have a registration of Yadis on file at the trademark office.
Both of these should be possible because so far, nobody has used  
Yadis as a generic term and it clearly stands for the protocol we've  
been defining in this community.

[Now I'm not a lawyer, have no desire to become one, and so I may be  
wrong, but I don't think so.]

How do people feel about this?



Johannes Ernst
NetMesh Inc.

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