[Fedora-legal-list] Product logos in Boxes

[Tom Callaway]

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On 02/19/2012 10:06 AM, Zeeshan Ali wrote:

> After talking to Karen Sandler (Executive Director, GNOME
> Foundation) about this matter, I modified the UI to signify the
> trademarks involved and a disclaimer note:
> 
> http://static.fi/~zeenix/tmp/boxes-small-iso-icons+logos.png
> 
> Hopefully that helps our case. I am sorry but I forgot to mention
> in my original mail that we'll appreciate urgency on this matter as
> GNOME (and therefore Boxes) is entering feature freeze for 3.4
> tomorrow evening. It is very much possible to break this freeze
> with explicit permission/announcement but it will be nicer/easier
> to do that at the beginning of the freeze rather than in the
> middle/end and we really want this feature in Boxes in 3.4.

After careful consideration, Red Hat Legal has decided not to approve
the use of the trademarked logos in this situation. While trademark
law permits the use of another's trademark in a referential way, as
you're doing here to indicate the operating system, one may only use
as much of the trademark as is necessary to make the reference.  Here,
the word mark alone (e.g., "Fedora" or "Microsoft Windows") is
sufficient to describe the operating system, so there appears to be no
reason that the logo is also needed to convey any necessary information.

Just as additional information, under trademark law it wouldn't matter
whether the logo file was included in the code or linked to a URL.  The
effect is the same, i.e., the logo is displayed, and how the page
appears to the user is what matters.

With respect to the disclaimer, you should modify it to say "Any
trademarks shown above are used merely for identification of software
products you have already obtained and are the property of their
respective owners."

Please feel free to reply if you have any questions about this.

Thanks,

~tom

P.S. IANAL, but the nice Red Hat Legal team are lawyers.

==
Fedora Project
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