On Wed, 8 Aug 2007, David Lyon wrote:
> Sebastian Günther wrote: > > E.g., if you have a GmbH in Germany/GesMbH in Austria (which is similar to a > > Ltd. in GB), the name of this GmbH gets known to the public and its name > > gets protected automatically just by being filed at the register court. So > > it's not necessary to protect the company's name using a registered > > trademark. AFAIK it's the same situation with any company, society or > > whatever: The first one which uses a name can use it forever, regardless of > > any patent or trademark stuff. > > > > By the way, by accident one of our current customers is the European Patent > > Office here in Munich. Yes, they are running Lazarus software for their > > video observation system ;) If any legal questions should arise in this > > domain, please give me a note, so that I can try to get answers :) > Hi Sebastian, > > That sounds like a good customer and a good case story... are we able to use > the story somewhere ? > > As for everything else, I've learnt a lot about where everybody is coming > from. > > The laws are not so different here, it's much the same. But people are > discussing it in a slightly different way. That is one of the problems. I have > had legal advice on this topic though, one of my closest uncles is a laywer, > the other is a judge. So over the years I have had many discussions about this > topic. > > If at the end of the day my views get rejected simply because they are not of > the right nationality then I am not worried. It has nothing to do with 'the right nationality'. The fact is that most Lazarus core developers are located in the EU. We can perfectly register the name Lazarus in the EU if this were so required, and that would be the end of it. No company in the US, Australia and Antarctica would be in the position to protest against this, since obviously the name is still free in the software class. (and in any other class in the EU as well) Also, a name change is not debatable: it will not be done. This is a done discussion, held a long time ago. While I understand that people want legal protection and advice, we should also not let ourselves be pushed by lawyers in a direction that we do not care for. Lawyers giving advice are "suspicious" simply because they are selling their own product. If I want advice about a product, I don't go to the manufacturer, I go to a third party. Michael.
