Wireshark · Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] [Wireshark-users] [Ethereal-dev] Major announcement

[Erwin Rol <mailinglists@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 2006-06-09 at 10:45 -0400, Manley, Kent wrote:
> >Solution one has the disadvantage that Gerald can do what he wants with
> >the trademark including selling it to Microsoft or anybody else ;-) And
> >that he will have to cough up all the cost himself, or at least find
> >funding himself, cause the world is bigger than the US, look what
> >happened to the Linux trademark in other countries. Of course the pro
> >side is that it is easy, Gerald registers the mark and we are done.
> 
> I believe that trademarks must be defended against infringement, which
> precludes the "we are done" piece.  Of course that's true no matter how the
> trademark is registered.

True, unlike copyright you have to actively defend your trademark when
you know it is being abused by someone. So until someone starts to abuse
the Wireshark trademark we are done. No matter if Gerald defends the
Wireshark mark, it still prevents others from kidnapping it, the worst
that probably could happen is that the name becomes "public domain".

Since I am not a lawyer and have generally no clue about international
law, everything I said in this mail should be ignored :-)

- Erwin