Please fix the trademark policy in regards to code

[Ellie]

Thanks for your responses, they have been very helpful!

I do wonder, would it maybe be possible and useful to add a note for
this anyway, just for informational purposes?

E.g. the Linux foundation puts the following:

"There are also some basic rights that everyone has to use any
trademark, which are often referred to as “fair use,” and The Linux
Foundation does not intend to restrict those rights.  You may make fair
use of word marks to make true factual statements.  But fair use does
not permit you to state or imply that the owner of a mark produces,
endorses, or supports your company, products, or services.  Even when
making fair use of a trademark, you should acknowledge the owner of the
trademark with a trademark notice, such as the notice displayed on The
Linux Foundation project websites."

I would find such a remark helpful, although the last sentence kind of
makes it again sound like they expect me to put (R) into the source code
 which I find a bit unfortunate. Some qualifier like "you should, +where
that is practical to do, acknowledge ..." might help alleviate this,
however.

In general, unless you only expect people to care about the guidelines
as soon as you send them angry legal letters, I feel like it would be
helpful to try to be more explanatory for uneducated people like me
regarding such practical questions. After all my intent reading the
guidelines as a non-lawyer was to see if I could comply in reasonable
ways anyway, which I would assume would be in your interest.

Regards,

Ellie

On 10/7/20 1:11 AM, Bill Poser via Unicode wrote:
> 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 <mailto:unicode at unicode.org>> wrote:
> 
>     On Thu, 1 Oct 2020 07:27:11 -0700
>     Ken Whistler via Unicode <unicode at unicode.org
>     <mailto: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)
>