Looney Labs Fluxx Mailing list Archive

Re: [Fluxx] Fluxx for American Girls

  • From"Bryan Stout" <bryan.stout@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • DateSun, 06 Apr 2008 15:54:19 -0400
Thanks, Carl, for your response. It led to me doing some research on this, and a better understanding.

From my reading, the "use it or lose it" aspect of trademarks means that if
you don't use a trademark over a certain length of time (such as 5 years), you lose the legal protection of it. This does not apply to copyrighted material.

I asked a patent lawyer friend about my previous statement, and found I was wrong. Whether or not you go after infringer A does not affect what happens when you go after infringer B.

What does happen is that if you do not respond to infringer A during a reasonable time, then they have "implied consent", and you can no longer try to enforce the copyright against them.

Bryan


On Sat, 05 Apr 2008 10:30:49 -0400, "Bryan Stout" wrote:
> I completely share the contempt for the litigious attitude. In a way, > it's
> too bad that the laws require people to go after the little guys if you
> don't want it thrown out of court when you go after the big guys -- > though I
> understand the reason for it.

For what it's worth, I think you're referring to an aspect of the law
that's unique to trademark law, not copyright. That is, to my
(obviously, extremely limited---no legal training etc.),
understanding, the "enforce it or lose protection" stuff is unique to
trademarks. And that does have bad effects at times, but I also
understand the concept behind it.

Copyright on the other hand, gives the copyright owner a tremendous
amount of latitude in treating people differently. That is, as a
copyright owner I can give different people differing permissions for
how to use my work, and that in and of itself isn't a problem.

-Carl



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