On Thu, May 27, 2004 at 05:48:34PM +0100, Dominic Hargreaves wrote:
Could you elaborate on why you think [a trademark] is worthwhile?
There are lots and lots of projects that inhabit the same topic-sector that OpenGuides does. Some are free, whether as in beer or speech. Some are not. Here's something JimH brought to my attention yesterday:
http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/1794/
It sounds an awful lot like the ideas that some of us have discussed for a mobile interface to OpenGuides. Whilst this is not relevant in terms of trademarking, my point is that we have competition on a lot of fronts. And somebody has already trademarked "openguide" in the USA:
http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=74529414
The world is big and mean, and we are neither of those. So I think even a small amount of pre-emptive defense on our part - in this case, a trade mark - would help us.
Don't even get me started on the patents issue :/
Earle