Author Topic: OS/2 Trademarks  (Read 14393 times)

Mathias

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Re: OS/2 Trademarks
« Reply #15 on: August 28, 2020, 10:04:50 am »
Why? OS/2 IS great already! :D

Question is: If you ask 100 people in your town: "What is OS/2?", I guarantee 90% won't know.
The typical thing like back in the days, when OS/2 was still maintained by IBM: People don't know the product, and/or don't know what it is for.. and why they should give it a try, even though they have Windows running. :>

As for ArcaOS: As soon as the typical problems are gone (browser, usb, uefi, gpt, localisation), merchandise should start, so more people actually know the product. - Perhaps even a demo live CD. (Perhaps not like AOL-CDs which were EVERYWHERE xD). - I often see people interested, but they are not willing to spend 117 EUR just to try out a product.

Anyway.. getting offtopic a little bit, I think I could prove OS/2 is not well known enough to be compared with brands like Mc Donalds or KFC.

But still, as Guzzi said, there still is Copyright. And since IBM and Microsoft have their hands on that stuff, this might be a thread for these two (and their lawyers). I suspect goodwill is required to officially abandon the brand and hand it over to somebody else. You might not be able to fight for this at court, as these companies have the ressources and also the best lawsuits in the world..

And even though the brand is gone, world wide, it's still "glowing hot iron".. better not touch it. ; )

Renee Senger

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Re: OS/2 Trademarks
« Reply #16 on: August 28, 2020, 09:48:22 pm »
Nice discussion.

I just remembered that here in Ecuador we used to have a fake McDonald's, that registered the name locally in the 80's. Once the US McDonald's arrived to Ecuador, on the late 90's, they were not able to much against the fake one. The both coexisted for some years until the US McDonald's offered the fake one some money.

Regards

There are some cases of this type all over the world! Here in Brazil "Land Rover" was registered at the time imported cars were banned. In Argentina, "Embratel" a trademark of a Brazilian Telecomunications State Company at this time, was registered too. Both were canceled by Patent and Trademark Offices.

Nowadays, after TRIP's (Agreement onTrade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) in 1994 (GATT- Uruguay) these cases are not more common in signatory countries of the agreement

Renee Senger

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Re: OS/2 Trademarks
« Reply #17 on: August 28, 2020, 11:37:55 pm »
A logo is not just protected by trademark but also by copyright.

There are differences in the legislation of trademarks from different countries, but there are basically three types:

Word Marks (only a name)
Design Marks (only a logo)
Composite Marks (words and logo)

I do not know about protection of a design (to use as a trademark)

Renee Senger

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Re: OS/2 Trademarks
« Reply #18 on: August 28, 2020, 11:40:59 pm »

I do not know about protection of a design (to use as a trademark)
[/quote]

Protection as copyright.