Announcing a new trademark policy for pfSense
-
https://blog.pfsense.org/?p=2273
-
I just read the policy and noticed that this forum does not comply with it.
The logo in the forum banner header is not the current logo and is probably not the registered trademark.
The logo in the forum banner header does not incorporate the registered symbol mark that indicates that the trademark is registered.
The use of the trademark word mark is not respected in the forum names.
'pfSense Forum' should probably be 'pfSense
Forum' now.
'Messages from the pfSense Team' should probably be 'Messages from the pfSense Team' now.There is no attribution to ESF for the use of the trademark on the pages where the trademark is displayed. I would expect on the forum for the attribution to appear in the footer of every page where the trademark appears.
The trademark policy document itself is littered with abuses of it's own policy by frequently using pfSense in the text instead of pfSense
.
https://www.pfsense.org/trademarks.htmlESF has an obligation to enforce the correct use of the trademark otherwise it risks setting a precedent that abuse of the trademark is accepted.
-
Reading the policy again https://www.pfsense.org/trademarks.html I noticed that 'pfSense CE' is not registered.
My interpretation is that references to 'pfSense CE' should be shown as 'pfSense
CE' and that it is a breach of trademark to misrepresent 'pfSense CE' as 'pfSense'.If I am correct, then the forum is going to get very messy as posts will have to clearly refer to the correct software distribution at all times. Perhaps the forum will need to be partitioned into two sections that reflect the distinction between the software distributions in order to respect the registered mark.
-
People, please do not feed the legal idiocy. As I've noted, I'm "fine" with the policy until someone tries to enforce the legal brainfarts. (And I don't blame Netgate per se for having to live in a super-retarded legal system, IP-wise.)
-
From the moment an organisation chooses to register a trademark they are obliged to enforce it or they risk losing it.
https://secureyourtrademark.com/blog/trademark-101-can-lose-trademark/An organisation cannot write a trademark policy and expect to not have to comply with it themselves. If they do so, they are eroding their own brand.
It is my opinion that the term 'pfSense' can no longer be used interchangeably to describe pfSense
commercial products and the pfSense community editions. Each time pfSense is used to describe the community edition it is diluting its validity to the commercial product. If ESF do not enforce this on their own public forum then they risk the community being able to prove that the use of the mark is more commonly used to describe the community edition than the commercial product. This might be important if installations of the community edition outnumber pfSense installations.I am not a fan of RedHat, but I understand why the company decided to distinguish their commercial product from the community edition by creating the FedoraProject.
-
From the moment an organisation chooses to register a trademark they are obliged to enforce it or they risk losing it.
https://secureyourtrademark.com/blog/trademark-101-can-lose-trademark/An organisation cannot write a trademark policy and expect to not have to comply with it themselves. If they do so, they are eroding their own brand.
It is my opinion that the term 'pfSense' can no longer be used interchangeably to describe pfSense
commercial products and the pfSense community editions. Each time pfSense is used to describe the community edition it is diluting its validity to the commercial product. If ESF do not enforce this on their own public forum then they risk the community being able to prove that the use of the mark is more commonly used to describe the community edition than the commercial product. This might be important if installations of the community edition outnumber pfSense installations.I am not a fan of RedHat, but I understand why the company decided to distinguish their commercial product from the community edition by creating the FedoraProject.
Are you an attorney?
If you're not an attorney, have you consulted with one on this?
You're wrong, but this is not the venue to explain how.