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Above in this comment thread: Zope Trademark Solution » not really the point...

defending trademarks

Posted by webmaven at 2005-06-29 01:15 PM
BTW, ZC really doesn't have much of a choice in defending the trademark in some respects. They can't let it become a generic name without losing all protection.

Then again, prohibiting 'inappropriate associations' for the name doesn't really qualify in that regard, instead, that is protecting the trademark *value*, which is a different thing entirely.

yup...

It seems the natural purpose of a trademark is to give recourse to businesses who want to prevent unlicensed imitation of their goods or services. I suppose you need to pick your battles, but IMHO, asking people who you reasonably believe will improve the value of your brand to sign a licensing agreement with content-control provisions in it is a bit self-defeating. I don't blame ZC for defending their trademark, I just wished they exercised better judgment by going after businesses who were clearly seeking to monetize the name instead of folks who run weblogs about the community that clearly have no interest in such a thing. That said, in the end, I recognize that it's a judgment call and that they have to go after *somebody*. I guess if I owned the trademark, I'd say "what's the very least I can do to defend this trademark and get away with it", because most uses of the mark by the community are clearly beneficial to the brand.