[Libre-soc-dev] Finishing off the grant: gigabit crypto router 2021-02-052

[Jacob Lifshay]

On Thu, Apr 18, 2024, 14:18 Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton <lkcl at lkcl.net>
wrote:

> On Thursday, April 18, 2024, Jacob Lifshay <programmerjake at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > RED didn't take the SimpleV trademark since they're not using that name.
>
> they did not seek a License on SV, that is correct.
>
> > VISC is a different trademark that afaik has always been owned by RED,
>
> no this is wrong. you do not understand Trademark Law.
>

you just told me that the VISC word was created by James in his capacity as
a director of RED and RED is using it to do business, therefore RED owns
the trademark for the word VISC in this context, assuming no one else was
using it before.


> read again what i wrote. they are stealing the concepts
> of SV, and passing them off under a different name.
> this is called "counterfeiting" which is why it is theft.
>

no, counterfeiting in the context of trademarks is person A passing off
something person A made or otherwise obtained from someone other than
person B as being branded by person B's trademark without person B's
authorization.

what you're claiming is the other way around, where person A is passing off
something person B made under person A's trademark, which is *not*
trademark infringement because person A authorized themself to use person
A's trademark. it may be copyright, patent, etc. infringement, but is not
trademark infringement.

See the closest thing I could find on wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfeit_consumer_good

> Counterfeit consumer goods—or counterfeit, fraudulent, and suspect items
(CFSI)—are goods, often of inferior quality, made or sold under another's
brand name without the brand owner's authorization.

aka using a brand without the authorization of the owner of *that brand*.
RED is the owner of VISC so whatever things they decide to call VISC is not
trademark infringement, because you have to *use* a brand without
authorization in order to infringe it. They are not using the brand SimpleV.

To be very clear, I don't believe RED is committing trademark infringement
or copyright or patent infringement, because they're not using your
trademarks and they have a copyright and patent license to the source they
are using *as long as they follow the license terms* because you licensed
the source code you wrote under the [L]GPL which grants anyone obtaining
that software those copyright and patent licenses conditional on following
the license terms.

>
> > so them using VISC is no problem.
>
> this is a misunderstanding of Trademark Law on your part,
> Jacob.
>
> i am back in A&E for the 26th time, i need to be brief.
>

hope you get better!

>
> look up more about how Trademarks work. counterfeiting in
> particular.
>

I did again just now, and afaict it doesn't work how you claimed.

Jacob