[Kamailio-Users] OpenSIPS project

[Jeremy McNamara]

Juha Heinanen wrote:
> in case no one has answered to this yet, OpenSER project got a few
> months ago a notice from a company who has registered trademarks on
> various SER related names and that company asked OpenSER project to stop
> using OpenSER name.  we had no other choice than to comply with the
> request.
>
>   


Is the company that registered the trademark a telecom company?  
When did they register the trademark?
Have they taken other steps to protect their trademark?


Prime example - Delta Airlines and Delta Faucet.


There is only a trademark conflict when the parties cannot agree on how 
each party uses the trademarked term.   


Another example:  Apple Computer and The Beatles' record label called 
Apple - Only when Steve Jobs decided to go the music biz with iTunes was 
there 'major' problems, even then they still worked things out to keep 
the brand recognition - which OpenSER has just finally started getting 
and has now totally lost with this ludicrous name change.


I'm not fond of how Digium changed Zaptel to DAHDI either, but they 
spent many years fighting it - certainly no knee jerk reaction there.



Also, what inelectual property does "OpenSER" have?  As far as I know, 
"OpenSER" is all freely available and open source, so where is the 
conflict?   With Digium and Zaptel there is very significant IP  (and 
i'm not talking internet addresses :)




> in retrospect, it might have made sense to publish this on OpenSER
> mailing lists when the request was received.
>   




Yes, a public disclosure of the request should have been made - surely 
somebody has prior art  (What about SER? Did they get the same request?) 






Jeremy McNamara




P.S.  I am not a lawyer, but I should become one  :)