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

[Jacob Lifshay]

On Mon, Apr 22, 2024, 06:11 Cesar Strauss via Libre-soc-dev <
libre-soc-dev at lists.libre-soc.org> wrote:

> I still have some doubt. On the Amaranth Github page, they say "Amaranth
> HDL (previously nMigen)", thus conveying to the reader that they are the
> real original owners of nMigen (tm), having decided to rename it to
> Amaranth.
>

that's not ok, because they are stating that Amaranth is the successor as
nMigen and implying they own the nMigen word, which is trademarked and they
do not own or have a license to the nMigen trademark afaik.

this would be like if someone started a company and started selling a
product named "Oaty Rings (formerly Cheerios)", where they're explicitly
claiming to be the successor of and owner of the Cheerios word. this is
trademark infringement.

however, just making something just like Cheerios and calling it "Oaty
Rings" without mentioning Cheerios at all is perfectly legal and not
trademark infringement, as is evidenced by several companies doing exactly
that, notably Walmart who makes Toasted O's.

So, unless you can show that RED has publicly stated that VISC is SimpleV
or that VISC is the successor to SimpleV, or some other thing where they
are implying they are the owners of the word SimpleV and not just using the
same idea (to be perfectly clear, David said they have since changed what
VISC stands for, to "Versatile Intrinsic Structured Computing", which is an
entirely different concept that they never told you, Luke, about), then I
can only conclude that their use of the VISC trademark is not infringing
the SimpleV trademark.

Jacob