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SuSE Businesses

SuSE No Longer Barred From Selling 183

Posted by Hemos from the crayola-next dept.
MobyTurbo writes "According to a press release SuSE is no longer barred from selling Linux as reported and discussed in a thread on slashdot. SuSE is settling out of court with a German company called "Crayon" that claims that the KDE app Krayon violates their trademark. Incidentally, this vulnerability probably applies to several other distributions."
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SuSE No Longer Barred From Selling More

SuSE No Longer Barred From Selling

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  • Incidentally, this vulnerability probably applies to several other distributions.

    I would think this only affects distros that have operations in Germany.

    • Re:Not a huge deal. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      One has to wonder how it is possible at all that there are still businesses left in Germany while Gravenreuth is still alive. He can strike at any time, for the most silliest reason [heise.de].

      Come tot think of it, how is it possible that Gravenreuth still lives: hitmen are not that expensive, even in Germany, and if enough computer dealers pooled their money...

    • Since the US justice persistently ignores theyer part of international law enforcment contracts and does not allow processes against US companies being brought before a juge in the country where the delict took place, in contrast to european companies, who have to defend themselves against ridiculous US laws even though the "delicts" happened outside of the US.
      • I assume english is not your first language and commend you on the pretty good attempt. The truth is that when it comes to copyright, trademark, and patent laws companies in one country (including the US) don't have any right to pursue a violation in a country in which they do not have a registered copyright, trademark, or patent. They can of course prevent any offending products from being sold in the US however. If you evidence of the contrary please feel free to post a link to it.
  • Has Crayon settled with just SuSE or can someone sue Redhat,Mandrake,Debian, ect. on their behalf?

    • Re:Lawsuits (Score:2, Funny)

      by Britney ( 264065 )
      SuSE is settling out of court with a German company called "Crayon" that claims that the KDE app Krayon violates their trademark

      Really? Who will Crayon be after next?

      German footballer Stefan Kuntz?

    • Re:Lawsuits (Score:2, Informative)

      by thegrommit ( 13025 )
      As noted elsewhere, the suit was filed on Crayon's behalf by an ambulance chaser (not the company itself). This yahoo story [yahoo.com] has more background. Regardless, the suit only affected distribution in Germany of SuSE.

  • colorful argument (Score:5, Funny)

    by cez ( 539085 ) <info@hist[ ]star ... m ['ory' in gap]> on Thursday January 10, 2002 @08:16AM (#2815794) Homepage
    What does Crayola have to say about this?

  • Summary from ZDNET (Score:5, Informative)

    by wiredog ( 43288 ) on Thursday January 10, 2002 @08:17AM (#2815797) Journal
    Zdnet [zdnet.com] reports that the "Krayon" app isn't even included in the distro. Also, "Crayon apparently was not interested in pursuing the case" and "In Germany, trademark suits can be filed by any attorney, even if that attorney doesn't represent the trademark holder" So it looks like the lawyer saw the opportunity for a quick kill, and missed.

    • Re:Summary from ZDNET (Score:5, Informative)

      by dybvandal ( 535813 ) on Thursday January 10, 2002 @08:30AM (#2815851) Homepage
      lets get a couple facts straight: 1) Gravenreuth often acts without having the "violated" party actually hiring him, which is fine by german law 2) in this case Gravenreuth was hired by the violated party 3) Gravenreuth send SuSe a letter in Okt. or Nov. saying that they may not include any software that violates their trademark but Suse did not feel like doing aynthing about it 4) Crayon as well as Gravenreuth where aware that the program was not part of Suse 7.3 (but there still is a link in some Koffice Menu for the app with the name Krayon) 5) the goal was to prevent SuSe from including a program with the name in any future releases 6) Suse 7.3 was actually never stoppped 7) Crayon did have an interest and the thing was settled without any license fees or other payments
      • "Crayon" being a common word in english (though not german) I would think the trademark would be invalid. ::shrug::

        1) Gravenreuth often acts without having the "violated" party actually hiring him, which is fine by german law.

        I think this is a really dumb idea, and as bad as Layers acting as ambulance chasers shopping for law suits. This about as bad as class action lawsuits here where you can be included in one without really having to be aware that you are.


        - subsolar


        Bringing stupid comments to slashdot for over a year.

        • AFAIK we in Germany also had somebody who managed to register "Webspace" as a trademark. Just like Capatain Zapp already stated in a previous post, as a trademark holder you then have to defend your trademark if other people are using that word (even if it is something like Webspace!). So this guy via that notorious Gravenreuth lawyer send mass-mails to hundreds of people who used "webspace" on their homepage and these people all had to pay the costs for that laywer (think it was ~ 600 Euro)

          now we call it "markengrabbing" (trade-mark grabbing) here.

          in a second instance a other court said this is not valid and he lost that trademark again, but that laywer earned quite a few bucks.

          http://www.afs-rechtsanwaelte.de/webspace1.htm
          http://www.markengrabbing.de
    • There's an app that isn't included in 7.3? How? Did they somehow forget? That thing is massive!

    • Re:Summary from ZDNET (Score:4, Informative)

      by psych031337 ( 449156 ) <psych0@wtnetCOFFEE.de minus caffeine> on Thursday January 10, 2002 @10:38AM (#2816524)
      "In Germany, trademark suits can be filed by any attorney, even if that attorney doesn't represent the trademark holder" So it looks like the lawyer saw the opportunity for a quick kill, and missed.

      Not quite. On their site, the company that set the legal action rolling claims that they hired the lawyer to ensure the trademark compliance.
      It looks more like someone from "Crayon" (the copyright holder) did not have a clue what the "Krayon" software (which is a part of KOffice) on the distro actually did. This is easy to understand, because the software pack named "Krayon" wasn't even on the distro cd's, the installation routine only created a menu entry. At first Crayon`s lawyer only sent a "Declaration of Omission" and asked for signature from SuSE. This would be like saying "OK, we did wrong, we admit, we won't ever do it again or pay the agreed amount if we do". I understand that SuSE declined to sign this statement, which then evoked the lawyer to file the suit for more pressure.
      No license charges have been agreed upon and both companies see this as a misunderstanding which they are done with now. The original press declaration, unfortunately only in german language is available on http://www.crayon.de/presseerklaerung.html

  • "Bugs" (Score:1, Troll)

    by bob@dB.org ( 89920 )
    Current trademark laws are "bugs". We need to fugure out how to remove these bugs, not just how to patch the symptoms.
    • While laws are pretty screwed up here in the US, they seem even worse in Germany. If you want to see all the Crayon trademarks in the US then just use TESS [uspto.gov]. That's the US Trademark Electronic Search System. You can see that you can use Crayon as long as you don't use it for a product similar to the ones listed there.
  • I suppose they must have done some market research and discovered that only a small percentage of children were actually eschewing real Crayons and turning to a KDE menu option for their coloring needs. Their colored-wax-stick market share is safe.
    • http://www.crayon.de/produkte.html They make software, not crayons :)
      • http://www.crayon.de/produkte.html They make software, not crayons :)

        Well... The products are more like collections of comic art, 3D art cliparts and stuff like that. They don't claim to make state-of-the-art software. Maybe they have coded a own proprietary viewer, but their main stream of revenue is in the graphic collection stuff.
    • my son and dog chews (not eschews) crayons

    • IANAL

      The German company Crayon doesn't make crayons. The word crayon when referring to crayons is a generic term. Crayola crayons are trademarked.

      Trademark law frequently permits trademarking generic terms when they refer to unusual uses of those terms. As an example, think of Microsoft Windows. Even if trademark law didn't permit such trademarking, the German word for crayon isn't "crayon"--it's "zeichenstift" according to babelfish [altavista.com]. I'm sure there are US companies that have trademarked words that would be generic in other languages, so it should stand to reason that German law permits trademarking of foreign words that would be generic in their native languages.

      Unfortunately, the real problem seems to be with the German court system permitting potentially-disastrous injunctions to be granted on the flimsiest of evidence or without real justification. The German company Crayon should be required to show that failure to grant the injunction would result in serious and irreparable harm before being granted the injunction. It's clear that the injunction was granted on flimsy grounds and shouldn't have been granted in the first place.

  • Do we know what trademark was violated? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by javilon ( 99157 ) on Thursday January 10, 2002 @08:19AM (#2815804) Homepage
    And why it did take it against SUSE instead of against the writer of the application?

    Or if they are going to do something against Red Hat, Mandrake, Debian, etc...

    And what the name of the application is?

  • Wonder if Binney&Smith have heard of this... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Thursday January 10, 2002 @08:19AM (#2815805) Homepage Journal
    Since they are Crayola, could they bring suit against the German company? Could a lawyer in Gemany bring suit against the folks who brought suit against SuSE? Could a lawyer nominally working for SuSE bring suit on behalf of Binney&Smith?

    • Re:Wonder if Binney&Smith have heard of this.. (Score:4, Funny)

      by jayhawk88 ( 160512 ) <jayhawk88@gmail.com> on Thursday January 10, 2002 @08:28AM (#2815842)
      Perhaps crayon is considered a general word, like tissue. The trademark name comes from the brand, in this case Crayola (Kleenex).
      • That's how I've always heard it explained. I was confused about it back around the time that I was 12, and was told at that time that words couldn't be trademarked to mean anything like what they really meant. So Crayolla was trademarked, and crayon was just was a crayon was. Then I asked about Kleenex(tm) (or did I ask about kleenex?).

        I'd never even heard the term facial tissue.
        .
    • Unless Crayola has a trademark in Germany then they are pretty much out of luck. Also, see my link above for Tess and see if Crayola even has a trademark on Crayons. Seems to me that Crayons came before Crayola but I am too tired to do the research myself (is there a mod for lazy?).

      • Proprietary Eponyms (Score:2, Informative)

        by gpinzone ( 531794 )
        There are a list of active trademarks used generically as well as a list of defunct ones here: http://rinkworks.com/words/eponyms.shtml Hmmm... I never knew "Aspirin" was a trademark.
        • I never knew "Aspirin" was a trademark.

          It still is, outside the US.

        • Surrendering the trademark Aspirin was part of Germany's reparations after WWI (I think). That's why it's a generic term in Britain and the US (it may still be a trademark in Germany).
        • Aspirin, as well as Heroin (that is also on the list) were developed by a german company Bayer (yes Bayer is german) its talked about shortly at http://www.aspirin.com/faq_en.html
          but basically When Germany lost WWII America decided it really likes those products and took them. Sadly it was discovered Heroin wasn't safe, and the both markets discontinued productions. Oh well :)HAHA
    • Since they are Crayola, could they bring suit against the German company?

      No, probably not. The German trademark laws are strong in protecting trademarks of German companies, but an "outsider" stands no chance. Besides, I don't think that Binney&Smith have ever claimed that they own the trademark on "crayon", just "Crayola"

      German companies have been "punitively" stripped of their trademarks outside of Germany, however. Perhaps the most famous example is the Bayer trademark on Aspirin; this trademark was taken away in the US and it became a generic term there sometime around WW I. In most of the rest of the world it is a trademark, not a generic term.

  • More like unauthorised action than a settlement (Score:3, Informative)

    by Polaris ( 9232 ) on Thursday January 10, 2002 @08:20AM (#2815809) Homepage Journal
    Actually, it seems the attorneys who took out the injunction were acting without the authority of the trademark holder, who was then found to be indifferent to the issue and not interested in pursuing it. It seems to be a quirk of German law that attorneys can do this (act first and get authorisation later).

  • Other comments (Score:2, Informative)

    by grid geek ( 532440 )
    The Register [theregister.co.uk] has an article on this story here [theregister.co.uk]

  • The lawyer responsible has history of extortion (Score:5, Informative)

    by Zergwyn ( 514693 ) on Thursday January 10, 2002 @08:39AM (#2815880)
    It pisses me off that the company Crayon itself admitted that it was just looking for a quick buck. Crayon is so generic, it KDE would almost certainly have won in court, but like so many other tech companies the time it would take while it would be barred from distributing SuSE made it easier just to settle. Which is exactly what one Günther von Gravenreuth was counting on. As stated in The Register, [theregister.co.uk] "He presents himself as a normal lawyer, but in fact he is a dangerous criminal. He is dangerous because he infiltrates the judicial system by means of legal practices. His intentions are destructive. He tries to hurt legally inexperienced developers, designers, service providers and other members of the information technology generation.


    In particular, he uses the regulations of trademark and patent law, because in this area the judical uncertainty is very high."

    It always annoys me to see this kind of abuse of the legal system, where over complicated proceedings and legal language makes it too much trouble for companies to fight, and encourages them to just settle. This rewards frivolous suits, instead of punishing them as it should. Sigh.

  • In some countries, (Score:5, Informative)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <`imipak' `at' `yahoo.com'> on Thursday January 10, 2002 @08:51AM (#2815922) Homepage Journal
    if a trademark becomes the generic term (eg: hoover is both the name of a product, and a verb to describe the act of using a vaccuum cleaner), then the company has a much more limited control over that name.


    Crayon is pretty much in that state. A "crayon drawing" is a drawing made with the application of coloured wax sticks. It does NOT require the use of wax sticks from a specific company. If a person draws something in crayon, again, it does not mean they went out and selected a specific brand of wax drawing implement.


    From that, SuSE should have been able to contend that "crayon", as pertains to anything other than wax sticks, has entered the public domain. As such, it can no longer be subject to trademark suits for anything other than attempts to directly clone the original product and sell that product under false pretenses.

    • Good point, but this is Germany, remember? "Crayon" is not used here, the word is "Buntstifte" (btw, very original, the french word "crayon" means crayon and is, AFAIK, older than the company. CMIIW).

      And SuSE did not need to defend itself against Crayon, as it wasn't Crayon but every German IT-guy's favorite enemy Günther Freiherr von Gravenreuth who sued them.

      Greets,

      Anno.

    • Re:In some countries, (Score:2, Informative)

      by balthan ( 130165 )
      Xerox would have been a better choice than Hoover. Especially since I've never heard Hoover used as a verb. Simmilarly, I've never heard crayon used as a verb. "Make sure you crayon inside the lines."

      Furthermore, common usage of a word does not prevent it from becoming a trademark. Obviously Crayon (TM) brand crayons would be a bad idea, but using Crayon (TM) brand speaker cable should be ok.

    • jd apparently does not understand that trademarks protect adjectives, not nouns. "Crayon" is not a generic name for a certain type of computer program: the trademark holder has a trademark for a computer program named Crayon, not for the word Crayon. If Suse tried to contend that "crayon" as the name of a computer program has entered the public domain, they would be laughed out of court. The concept you're confused about has to do with, say, Kleenex becoming a generic name for a facial tissue ("a kleenex"). This concept has gotten confused further by the DNS issues: before the domain name fights, it was clearer that you can't own a word, only certain applications of that word ("apple" as the name of a computer is owned by one company, "apple" as the name of a record company by another).

      People need to know that if you write a clone of a program, and the program's name is not a generic name for the type of program in question (like "graph" for a graphing program), it's not legitimate to name your program just by putting a K or a G in front of the other program's name. So, "killustrator" would be a clear loser if ever taken to court, because even though Illustrator is a word, it is not a generic term describing a vector-graphics drawing program, and furthermore it will be easy to show that the name is not a coincidence, that the namer intends to suggest a relationship between the two programs.

      Similarly, the FSF might well have a case against a proprietary program that uses GNU in its name: even though it hasn't formerly registered GNU, it's been using it as a mark for a long time in business (the FSF sells CDs, tapes, etc) and it is a widely recognized and respected name.

      • While common words "apple" can be trademarked, they can't be used in fields where they are generic descriptors.

        Apple Music is okay because Apple is not a type of music. Apple Fruits is not okay because apples are a type of fruit.

        A crayon is a generic drawing insturment and a computer program that allows the user to draw, as if with a crayon, should be named "Crayon" or "Electric Crayon" or something.

        Whoever granted "crayon" as a trademark on anything resembling a drawing program should be fired. Just like patent examiners who slack off and grant stupid crap which innocent companies then have to defend against later. (Like, who the hell granted that laser-pointer + cat thing...)
  • That is almost as bad as "windows". and "word". and lets not forget "office".
    • I've said it a hundred times in this article alone but obviously some people don't know how to read. So instead I will continue your example out of the Microsoft bashing realm that you are stuck. Apple is a generic word. So is Sun. Java is not just a word but a place in Indonesia.
      • Microsoft bashing realm? Did you even read what he wrote? I think this sounds like Microsoft bashing bashing.
        • Maybe I am wrong but he was comparing this to Microsoft trying to trademark Windows, Word or Office. Sounds like Microsoft bashing to me.

  • 22,103 defendants (Score:5, Funny)

    by Alsee ( 515537 ) on Thursday January 10, 2002 @09:06AM (#2815986) Homepage
    Crayon Vertriebs has announced that to inhibit any future potential dilution of market value of their brand "Crayon", they intend to seek injunctions against the following 22,103 defendants:

    Arayon [google.com] 49 hits.
    Brayon [google.com] 463 hits.
    Drayon [google.com] 285 hits.
    Erayon [google.com] 30 hits.
    Frayon [google.com] 100 hits.
    Grayon [google.com] 547 hits.
    Hrayon [google.com] 2 hits.
    Irayon [google.com] 20 hits.
    Jrayon [google.com] 22 hits.
    Krayon [google.com] 12300 hits.
    Lrayon [google.com] 5 hits.
    Mrayon [google.com] 8 hits.
    Nrayon [google.com] 5 hits.
    Orayon [google.com] 56 hits.
    Prayon [google.com] 2750 hits.
    Rrayon [google.com] 4770 hits.
    Srayon [google.com] 52 hits.
    Trayon [google.com] 603 hits.
    Urayon [google.com] 2 hits.
    Vrayon [google.com] 5 hits.
    Xrayon [google.com] 17 hits.
    Yrayon [google.com] 10 hits.
    Zrayon [google.com] 2 hits.

    At this time Crayon Vertriebs has not named any defendants using Qrayon [google.com] 0 hits, Wrayon [google.com] 0 hits, or rayon [google.com] 467,000 hits. Crayon Vertriebs reserves the right to name additional defendants in the future.

    • Re:22,103 defendants (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by Alsee ( 515537 )
      P.S.
      I'm Karma Kapped. Don't need +1 funny. I wanna see that sucker labeled +1 effort!

      -
    • And Crayon [google.com] [google.com] 287,000 hits.


      Crayon means 'pencil' in french. Is is funny to see that some could use virtualy any words in a dictionnary and protect it for its own usage....
      I should try to protect 'slash' :-)

      • Slashdot is trademarked for News features and public commentary by BlockStackers Inc. CORPORATION MICHIGAN 116 E 18th St Holland MICHIGAN 49423. There are some 86 trademarks (including dead ones) that include the word slash.

    • Aww, I think (from linguistic point of view) they're only interested in words with "rayon" preceded by a 'k-like' consonant. Krayon counts, Qrayon would, Xrayon (debatably) and perharps even Hrayon (with hard 'h').

      With other variants of the word they probably wouldn't have a case (the lawyer who did this case may be an idiot, but he probably doesn't still want to get laughed out of the court =)

    • They could not go after 'rayon' as this has been used as the name of a fabric since before personal computers were invented.

  • Same Game? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by digitaltraveller ( 167469 )
    Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't this the same guy who was bullied a few months ago over the name Killustrator by Adobe?
    The concept of trademarking common english is dubious at best and completely retarded at worst. Trademarks should be limited to unique LOGOS - not words. One simple test: "Can I find this word in a dictionary?" If so, no trademark should be granted on it. There is a big difference between "Floor, Dog, Architect, Illustrator" and "Coca-Cola, the Taste of a new Generation".
    • Well, I'm not sure that "common english words" really applies when in Germany - given that German is the primary language spoken over there... :)
    • I'm afraid his post is not insightful but just plain stupid. Trademarks for common english words make up most of US Trademarks. If Apple could not trademark the word Apple for computers then I could go out and build a Windows box and call it an Apple PC. This would obviously be misleading to the general public. This is how trademark laws work. Next time, you and the moderator should do some research first.

    • Maybe so. But the naming issue seems to be a symptom of a bigger problem. Why does the Linux community value copying existing products--down to similar product names--instead of trying something new?

      We got a good report from Macworld on /. where we were told Apple continues to blaze new trails. Where are the new killer apps on Linux? The Linux community seems content to copy existing apps and names, and thus can only claim "Freer" instead of also "innovative".

  • SuSE & Slashdot (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 10, 2002 @09:13AM (#2816011)
    Although this is more or less good news, I've been wondering why the majority of SuSE news posted is negative (e.g. New Financing And Fewer Staff @ SuSE [slashdot.org], IBM And Intel Help Rescue SuSE From Insolvency [slashdot.org], SuSE Announces More Layoffs [slashdot.org], SuSE Lays Off (Most) U.S. Staff (Updated) [slashdot.org]), while releases 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3 of their distro have been ignored. Check it out [slashdot.org]. I know at least one person submitted the 7.2 and 7.3 releases.
  • Basically they said they could care less and that the lawsuit brought on their behalf was done so unknowingly to them. In Germany anybody can sue on behalf of someone else in cases of trademark violations even if that party has no connection with the trademark holder. To top that off the bar for preliminary injunctions is much lower than that in other countries.

  • I (Score:3, Funny)

    by Treeluvinhippy ( 545814 ) <liquidsorceryNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday January 10, 2002 @09:26AM (#2816074)
    with partnership with B® and C® have formed® a new ecommerce company whose vision is to bring whatever to wherever all around® the planet with unlimited® capacity. This meld®ing of giants has the new and original name of D®

    Our business plan is generate revenue by suing anyone and® everything that has violated® our cherished® and world® reconigzed® trad®emark.

    For example the online forum Slashd®ot. If you will notice the third® from last letter you will see our trad®emark is once again used® without out our consent and you can be sure our lawyers are stand®ing by to d®ishout our creamy brand® of messed® up justice on the bagel that is the internet.

    Once we have generated® enough revenue we will commence with bringing unlimited® broad®band® access that is afford®able to everyone, be they eskimo or aborigine. Although I will ad®mit we haven't a clue how we're going to pull it off.

    D® and d® are registared® trad®emarks of D® Ecommerece®. B® and C® are registared® trad®emarks used with permission. Any other letter of the english alphabet that is owned® by another company we are a small startup and it isn't worth it to come after us.

  • Why SuSE? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by xanadu-xtroot.com ( 450073 )
    The part I don't understand about this whole saga is why SuSE? It's not "their" application, it's just in their distribution. Hell, thechnically, they aren't even selling it (they can't because of the GPL). They are just putting it on a CD and in a box for us. What about RedHat or Mandrake? Are they goning to have to brave these same elements?

    Now, I understand that RH and MDK are not German companies and would be out of Crayon's "jurisdiction". Sooooo... what then about KDE? Granted KDE isn't a real "company", nor all all the hackers that are apart of KDE residing in Germany, but KDE is indeed (losely) based in Germany. Are they going to have to change it's name AGAIN? [slashdot.org]

    P.S. Sorry for bad spelling, I haven't had coffee yet... :-\
    • Also, SuSE certainly does sell SuSE. They can't prevent other people from copying/selling/whatever the GPL'ed parts of the distribution, but there is no restriction in GPL about selling GPLed software, in fact it is explicitly permitted.
    • You miss the crucial point - KDE doesn't have boxes to sell. Since Crayon would never be able to win this in court (even in Germany) they needed to sue someone who had good incentive to settle quickly. Voila.
    • Sooooo... what then about KDE?

      Because there's nothing to milk from KDE hackers. What is this Gravenreuth going to get sueing a bunch of poor hackers?

    • Hell, thechnically, they aren't even selling it (they can't because of the GPL).

      Yes, they can and are.

  • This is nothing. The Deutsche Telekom once sued a company because they produced a magenta-colored book, and another one because their name was "T-Media". The letter t and the color magenta are part of their trademark.

    Maybe that's why there is no CMYK in the Gimp

  • I just have to shake my head at what people try to sue over. Lindows and Windows was dumb enough, Crayon and Krayon was even dumber. What's next, is Cray going to sue Crayola Crayon next???

    rm -r windows
    • there will be lawyers and people looking to rake it in. I have a friend who works at a law firm as a paralegal. Her job is to read as much as possible (trade journals/on-line mags/discussion groups) and look for possible revenue streams. If she finds something interesting (interesting does NOT imply use of common sense) she passes it on to a pool of lawyers who dig a bit deeper.
  • Perhaps Cray computer should sue crayon for dilution of their trademark.
    --McFly

  • I find myself responding to so much ignorance and stupidity in this discussion that I am going to put everything in one post and use small words to make it easy on all of you. First off, trademark laws differ from country to country. I am going to discuss US trademark laws not because they are the laws in this case but because they clarify some misconceptions in general. From the US Patent Office [uspto.gov] - A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol or design, or a combination of words, phrases, symbols or designs, that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others. In other words, Oracle has a trademark on the word Oracle (which is a real word) for computer software and database design for others (as well as other things). They have exclusive right to create a software product with the name Oracle. Fedmet Resources Corporation also has a trademark on the word Oracle. Their trademark is for refractory or ceramic brick. You can see that few people would confuse an Oracle database with a brick (no comment). So a company doesn't "own" a word by trademarking it. They reserver the right to sell particular products with that word as its name. I hope this clarifies things for some people.
  • The German company "Crayon" probably decided that SuSE was small-potatos and that there are other companies [crayola.com] that might have more money to extort.

  • From The Register article about it... (Score:3, Funny)

    by glwtta ( 532858 ) on Thursday January 10, 2002 @11:33AM (#2816930) Homepage

    "...app called Krayon, listed in the start menu but no longer supplied..."

    The what menu now??

    (I know, I know, off topic, blah, blah - sue me.)

  • according to the fine folks at merriam-webster (www.m-w.com), the word 'crayon' dates back to 1644. I agree that you shouldn't make a product with a name that is similar to an already exiting product with similar functionality. however, there should exceptions when companies name their products after simple, centuries-old words (crayon, draw, windows, paint, painter, illustrator, write, word) in the first place.

    Also, is it just me, or is it strange that the two biggest offenders when it comes to uncreative names are when companies make *writing* and *artistic* programs? I could forgive a math-geek for being too left-brained to come up with anything more creative than "Math", but c'mon... Draw? Word? Sheesh. Maybe we should just go to funtctionality:paltform names, like WordProcessor:Win32 or RasterArt:Mac.
  • I think the lesson here is two-fold.

    First, companies will leech money from superior sources in any manner they can. If you can't beat them, sue them. Sue them for being named similarly. Hell, next we'll see Microsoft sue Stallman because Emacs can be used for editing text, same as Word.. A clear violation, and interference in Microsoft's Freedom to Compete.. For them, it's a drop in the bucket, for a small company defending against such idiocy, is bankrupcy.

    Second part of the lesson? Hackers, don't be so fucking clever with your program names.. Don't call it Krayon if it's anything even remotely similar to Crayon. Don't call it Killustrator if it's an Illustrator work-alike. Don't call it Gnutella if it smells like chocolate and hazelnuts.

    Yes, in principle, naming cleverness is a form of expression and should be protected by the Freedom of Speach (which BTW only applies in the US, and even there it's a very iffy thing lately)..

    In practice, unless you have money to burn on 'standing up for your principles' in court, name it something else; something that won't give rich companies an excuse to sue.
  • "a German company called "Crayon" that claims that the KDE app Krayon violates their trademark."

    If only Seymor was still around to first claim prior art and then sue for them violating the trademarks on the power buttons for his super computers.
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