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Pam is a Board Member of the Open Source Initiative and the principal of Chestek Legal in Raleigh, North Carolina. She works with creative communities, giving practical legal advice on branding, marketing, and protecting and sharing content. Pam has authored several scholarly articles, has a legal blog at Property, Intangible, and was formerly an adjunct professor at Western New England College School of Law.
Authored Comments
If a language has a trademark, even referential use could still be a problem. What if I said "I wrote this in MyLanguage." MyLanguage is the trademark owned by MyCompany, and I get a letter from MyCompany saying "You're not using authentic MyLanguage because it doesn't meet our standards, so you can't say that." But how else could I convey that I used the language everyone else thinks is MyLanguage?
I'm not sure whether a generic identifier solves the problem because it just seems duplicative. But it is interesting, I think, that we commonly refer to a "generic [name brand]" for pharmaceuticals, like "generic Advil," and no one seems to worry too much about it. I'd love to hear from someone familiar with pharma trademarks about the generic industries' use of brand names.
I was in Boston last week and was using Google Maps on my iPhone to get around. It was terrific, having the subway and bus arrival times counting down so I knew how fast I had to move to make my connection. A lot different from my old days in Boston, where you just had to hope.