[Twisted-Python] suggestions for naming to help us preserve a Twisted trademark

[Phil Christensen]

On Jun 10, 2008, at 1:35 PM, Trent Nelson wrote:
>> AFAIK if someone infringes you're trademark you are obliged to  
>> enforce
>> your trademark or lose it, the afore mentioned two people Glyph is  
>> not
>> happy with who are using the word 'Twisted' would need to receive a
>> C&D off the bat. Does Twisted Labs have the resources to put into
>> maintaining their trademark?
>
> I found almost the exact opposite to what you're stating here when I  
> looked into acquiring trademarks for some company stuff a while  
> back.  You're not obliged to do anything; it simply provides you  
> with a legal grounding if you wish to challenge a party that you  
> believe has infringed upon your trademark (assuming it's to your  
> detriment; you wouldn't pursue a 'Twisted Fruits', a company down  
> the street that brands their produce with a big 'Twisted' sticker).
>
> It's up to you to enforce your trademark, there's no governing body  
> that does it; such a body only comes in to play to arbitrate  
> disputes.  I've never heard of an obligation to enforce your  
> trademark "or lose it" as you put it.

IANAL, but I did read a lot about this on slashdot ;-)...

When such a dispute occurs, you have to prove that you've been  
performing due diligence in protecting your trademark. I don't think  
it's necessary to send the aforementioned projects C&Ds quite yet, but  
they should be contacted and told of our intentions to protect the  
Twisted trademark.

IIRC, this is to prevent people from registering everything they can  
think of, and then suing the next person to use that mark. It would be  
nice if we had something like that for patents...

-phil