what to do about annoying trademark use?

Rich Brown richb.hanover at gmail.com
Mon Nov 2 06:49:39 EST 2020


A couple thoughts:

TL;DR - I'm not clear that we have a problem of NXP misusing the OpenWrt name. (But I woke up early since we just switched from DST, and my Google-fu may be weak...)

In any event, we should "be nice" if we need to ask for changes. Details... 

1) I googled for "NXP Layerscape OpenWrt 20.09" from Daniel Golle's note, but didn't find anything relevant. I did find a "QorIQ LS1043A" fact sheet at https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/fact-sheet/LS1043A46ABHRFS.pdf that clearly states that "Linux OpenWRT" runs on it. That usage seems to be explicitly in-bounds. I also found a bunch of "Community" items that talk about porting OpenWrt to a NXP device. In fact, we have an entry in the Table of Hardware at https://openwrt.org/toh/hwdata/nxp/nxp_ls1046ardb

2) It's good to have the SFC available to do the heavy lifting if we need to speak formally with NXP.

3) I want to second Daniel's concern that we not be jerks. I am reminded of Netflix's good job when asking someone not to use their "Stranger Things" name... https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170920/09481438248/what-netflixs-congenial-trademark-threat-letter-says-about-everyones-tolerance-trademark-bullying.shtml

Rich

> On Nov 1, 2020, at 2:15 PM, Fernando Frediani <fhfrediani at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> +1 for Sam's suggestion.
> Makes sense and sounds pretty reasonable.
> 
> Fernando
> 
> On 01/11/2020 15:42, Sam Kuper wrote:
>> On Sun, Nov 01, 2020 at 02:29:48AM +0000, Daniel Golle wrote:
>>> So NXP has released something they call NXP Layerscape OpenWrt 20.09
>>> 
>>> So not only they use the OpenWrt brand name, they have also released
>>> their fork with a version which looks like it could be an official
>>> OpenWrt release and will make people think that they should annoy us
>>> when it comes to getting support for that.
>>> 
>>> I'm not suggesting to do anything about that in terms of legal action
>>> (as that would be even more annoying for everyone involved), but I
>>> think we should do something to prevent that from happening even more
>>> in future.
>>> 
>>> We are closing bug reports (especially for LuCI) on dialy basis where
>>> people request support for software which looks like it was an OpenWrt
>>> release but turns out to be a vendor-fork.
>>> 
>>> Debian also managed to make vendors name their forks differently, ie.
>>> Raspbian and such. ASUSWrt is kind of a good example of how it would
>>> be done the right way for OpenWrt (at least in my opinion).
>> OpenWrt recently joined the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC):
>> https://sfconservancy.org/projects/current/ .
>> 
>> The SFC is designed to help member projects to deal with problems like
>> this: https://sfconservancy.org/projects/services/ .
>> 
>> So, as a first step, those with standing to act on OpenWrt's behalf
>> (committers/Decisionmakers? or whoever has been designated as OpenWrt's
>> liaison with the SFC?) should probably communicate the concerns to the
>> SFC.  The SFC should then propose possible next steps & state the
>> benefits or disadvantages of each.
>> 
>> As for legal action: IANAL but I think in at least some jurisdictions,
>> trade marks lose validity if not enforced.  If so, the SFC may advise
>> legal action against NXP & other vendors abusing OpenWrt trade marks
>> (because otherwise OpenWrt would lose those trade marks).
>> 
>> The action might not involve going to court, it might initially just be
>> a "cease & desist" letter sent to the vendors, perhaps stating that an
>> acceptable resolution would be for the vendor to rename any forks they
>> might create (e.g. "NXPwrt" or whatever).  Only if the vendors persist
>> in abusing the trade mark might stronger action be needed.
>> 
> 
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