Please fix the trademark policy in regards to code

Bill Poser billposer2 at gmail.com
Tue Oct 6 18:11:07 CDT 2020


It is not the case that any use of a trademark constitutes infringement or
requires permission. Trademark owners sometimes try to persuade people that
this is so and issue rules as to how their trademark should be used, but
they're blowing smoke.  A trademark is only infringed when there is a risk
of confusion. I can't name my beverage "Coca-Cola" or something similar
like "Cokacola",  because there is a risk that consumers will confuse it
with the original product. I can write an article about Coca-Cola, and
refer to it by that name as much as I like, because I am using the
trademark to identify the product with which the owner has associated it. I
am not creating any risk of confusion in the eye of the consumer.
Similarly, the Unicode Consortium has the right to block the use of
"Unicode" in reference to some competing encoding standard, but it has no
right to block the use of the term in the title or text of articles about
the Unicode standard.

On Thu, Oct 1, 2020 at 11:28 AM Richard Wordingham via Unicode <
unicode at unicode.org> wrote:

> On Thu, 1 Oct 2020 07:27:11 -0700
> Ken Whistler via Unicode <unicode at unicode.org> wrote:
>
> > References to "unicode" in code and related files and libraries would
> > generally be considered just a functional "fair use" reference, and
> > nothing more.  Accordingly, the Unicode Consortium would not take
> > exception to such a use, nor would it require the use of the
> > trademark symbol in code, for the reasons you state.
>
> I don't see any evidence of the Unicode Consortium going after
> Wikipedia either, despite articles simply entitled "Unicode", or even
> after respellings in other scripts.  As for
> https://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicodex..., that even uses the genitive
> singular for "Signum Unicodicis" - isn't that required to be "Signum
> Unicodex" if "Unicodex" is pukka Latin?
>
> Richard.  (lingua in bucca posita)
>
>
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