Apparently, Elon Musk isn't very good at searching the Internet...
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Twitter-X-X.Org-Logos
Wonder if there will be a lawsuit over this one?
Gilbert
Those two logos are definitely "confusingly similar" (legal term in trademark law) and, being in the same field (IT), would likely not pass a trademark test for co-existence. But, does X.org actually have a trademark on it? If yes, then Musk would surely lose. But if not, then Musk could quickly seek a trademark, after which X.org would likely lose.
In the latter case, the length of time X.org was already using this (unregistered) logo would normally not matter in trademark disputes, because they should have registered it if it was important to them. "First to register" normally wins.
Hartmut
On Mon 24 Jul 2023 at 16:02:51 -05:00, Gilbert Detillieux Gilbert.Detillieux@umanitoba.ca wrote:
Apparently, Elon Musk isn't very good at searching the Internet...
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Twitter-X-X.Org-Logos
Wonder if there will be a lawsuit over this one?
Gilbert _______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.ca https://muug.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
I should add, visual distinctness (not "visually confusingly similar") is even more important than textual distinctness. E.g., Excel spreadsheet and Excel chewing gum do co-exist, but they would not be allowed to have "confusingly similar" logos.
Hartmut
On Mon 24 Jul 2023 at 16:36:24 -05:00, Hartmut W Sager hwsager@marityme.net wrote:
Those two logos are definitely "confusingly similar" (legal term in trademark law) and, being in the same field (IT), would likely not pass a trademark test for co-existence. But, does X.org actually have a trademark on it? If yes, then Musk would surely lose. But if not, then Musk could quickly seek a trademark, after which X.org would likely lose.
In the latter case, the length of time X.org was already using this (unregistered) logo would normally not matter in trademark disputes, because they should have registered it if it was important to them. "First to register" normally wins.
Hartmut
On Mon 24 Jul 2023 at 16:02:51 -05:00, Gilbert Detillieux Gilbert.Detillieux@umanitoba.ca wrote:
Apparently, Elon Musk isn't very good at searching the Internet...
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Twitter-X-X.Org-Logos
Wonder if there will be a lawsuit over this one?
Gilbert _______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.ca https://muug.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.ca https://muug.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
I'm sure someone originally "owned" X. AT&T? Oldsters (well older than me!) will know. They, and then the companies who merged with them or bought them out, would probably own the logo trademark.
The logos are similar enough, and they are both in the realm of "computers", therefore there may be issues. But if no one really cares about the X logo anymore, whoever owns it should sell it to Elon and make mega-bank! If this benefits the community (Xorg) somehow, then bonus.
Part of Project Athena at MIT in the 1980s. Not sure when the logo happened, but almost certainly it'll be owned by either The Open Group, or the X.org Foundation today. It's likely, however, that it'll be under an MIT-style license, so a moderately difficult prosecution of its rights if anyone wanted to. -Adam
Get Outlook for Androidhttps://aka.ms/AAb9ysg ________________________________ From: Roundtable roundtable-bounces@muug.ca on behalf of Trevor Cordes trevor@tecnopolis.ca Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2023 4:39:29 PM To: roundtable@muug.ca roundtable@muug.ca Subject: Re: [RndTbl] X.com vs X.org logos
I'm sure someone originally "owned" X. AT&T? Oldsters (well older than me!) will know. They, and then the companies who merged with them or bought them out, would probably own the logo trademark.
The logos are similar enough, and they are both in the realm of "computers", therefore there may be issues. But if no one really cares about the X logo anymore, whoever owns it should sell it to Elon and make mega-bank! If this benefits the community (Xorg) somehow, then bonus. _______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.ca https://muug.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
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Trevor Cordes