[Foundation-l] New Meta-Wiki logo - Approved?

Sun Sep 7 04:52:04 UTC 2008

> I believe this is an incorrect description of trademark law.

I'm not an attorney, but my understanding of trademark law is that it
protects against uses likely to generate confusion among members of
the general public.  It's unlikely that anyone seeing a brothel with
the same logo as Meta-Wiki is going to assume that the two entities
legally affiliated.

> You can have an "Apple Computer", "Apple Records" and "Apple Dry
> Cleaning".  Each of them can have an apple image in their logo.
> However, they can't each have The Same apple image in their logo
> because the specific logo still identifies a specific company.

All of those logos (well, the first two, at least) are copyrighted.
The image in question is in the public domain.

> In other words, using the exact logo is by definition implying
> an association, just as if they had used the word "Wikimedia" on
> their product.

Companies called "Peace Computer", "Peace Records" and "Peace Dry
Cleaning" can all use exactly the same public-domain CND peace symbol
as their logos without committing trademark infringement.

And of course, the image in question has been in the public domain
since 2006, so there might be many uses that predate Meta-Wiki's.

But as I noted, I'm not an attorney.  My only concern is that
Foundation policy is being met.  If it is (and the Foundation is okay
with Meta-Wiki having a PD logo), that's good enough for me.