Disclaimer: IANAL, but I do read Slashdot an awful lot. (that is, take this with a larger-than-average lump of salt)
> If there were a problem trademarking the name Sage, it would I guess > be most likely to be because of the accounting software. > > The word "SageMath" does not have any entries at all in the trademark > database. > > The point of this email is to discuss: > > (1) Should we trademark SageMath (pretty obvious "yes")? One big issue with trademarks is in the identification of a brand. If somebody trademarks our "brand", and then attempts to sue us, I'm fairly sure that they'd be laughed out of court. But, we'd have to appear and hire some lawyers, which would suck all around. However: SageMath is NOT our brand. We call the package Sage absolutely everywhere, and we don't use this "SageMath" brand. AFAIK, brands have to be used to be defended. There is precisely one reason that I would want to trademark SageMath: If any of the 50 billion companies named Sage attempt to sue us, we'd have an immediate "out": we could switch to SageMath, and forever remain SageMath (in the US) because we'd already called dibs on the name. However, I think that the mixed-case compound word kinda sucks, and I'd prefer Sage Math or Sagemath. > (2) Should we also trademark Sage in the context of math software, > if possible? YES, absolutely. However, as previously noted, our finance module may land us in hot water. > (3) Is there somebody who like "legal stuff" who is willing to help > out with the application? Because I'm not such a person. I'm willing to help out with the application. Also, this is something that the UW should provide resources for. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
