Logos vs Mascots (AROS)

[kolla]

What does the Klingon font have to do with the cat?

You have no idea what Klingon looks like, do you.... sigh :confused:

[kolla]

RE Belial6 bang on. The new logo is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

No it isn't. The Amiga checkmark is a long abandoned trademark that can be used by anyone for anything at this point.

From a community standpoint however, I think reserving the Amiga checkmark to symbolize "classic" (which will have to include AROS/m68k) is the way to go.

[kolla]

That is simply untrue.  Amiga products are still being sold that have the Amiga check mark.  Every copy of Amiga Forever that sells is being sold with the kickstart roms which show the Amiga Trademark on boot.

And? As I wrote, anyone can use it for anything at this point. The only reason why the checkmark is there on boot is because kickstart 3.1 (well, 2.0 really) had it there, and replacing it is not something as trivial as replacing some bitmap.

So, even if you ignore the fact that IP law is completely out of wack in such a way that you might get sued even if the trademark is abandoned, it wouldn't apply to the check mark since it is still in use.

That someone use it does not mean that it's a valid trademark. Noone has legally cared about the checkmark since the days of Amiga Technologies GMBH and Amiga OS 3.1 when it was featured on the reprinted manuals (original OS3.0 and 3.1 manuals had no checkmark on them, only the 5 colour stroke). The checkmark was abandoned in favour of the boingball once Amiga International came along, and along with the written escom "AMIGA" the boingball has been the only protected logo since.

I've had T-shirts made with Amiga checkmarks on (nice indigo coloured ones), various Amiga related sites use it - it's been public domain more or less since CBM was around to care. I have yet to hear about _anyone_ even getting note about use of Amiga checkmark. And from whom would such a note come from anyways? Cloanto? Amiga Inc? Haha - dream on. The boingball on the other hand, has been the subject of many threats throughout the years.

And anyhow - the Amiga checkmark exists in so many variants, that it doesn't really work well as a legal logo. The one I use on my excellent T-shirts have the coloured version of this one on them, which is quite accurate compared to the one found on A1000. Opposed to the one used in bootscreens (which is limited due to hardware).

But by all means, if you think I'm wrong, feel free to sue me for infringement, or talk Cloanto or whoever into doing so.

[kolla]

The arrow is resting on the wrong side of the bow - the arrow will bounce off and she'll most likely miss whatever she's aiming for. I just wanted to point that out

[kolla]

Try some photo og Geena Davis instead :lol:

[kolla]

If your IP is still being sold with the trademark on it, it is still in use.

Even when there's other parties also selling their IP with the same trademark on and you do not do _anything_ to prevent them from doing so? That's more or less the definition of abandonment.

How easy or hard it is to remove is irrelevant to the fact that it is still being used on products that are still being sold. The fact that there is more than one trademark does not make it legal for you to use.  The fact that you use it without getting sued does not make it legal for you to get used.  That fact that I think it SHOULD be legal to use does not make it legal to use.

The fact that none of the involved parties, be it Amiga in its various incarnations, Cloanto, Hyperion or anyone else care about it, have not cared about it, have not protected it, have not used any legal actions against anyone for using it, have not even registered it - makes it perfectly legal. The fact that it shows up on the boot screen of OS2.0-3,9 is irrelevant, by that logic you can also say that it's not legal to use the purple colour used in the background.

Of course, the point that you challenge ME to sue you for a trademark that someone else owns indicates that either you have absolutely no clue what a trademark is, you are intentionally misstating your position in a hope to derail reasonable conversation.

I challanging YOU since you obviously care so much, and my eyes the logo in question is just as much YOUR property as anyone else. Who in your eyes would be the ones to sue me? Cloanto? Amiga Inc? Do you really think any of them care about the checkmark logo? Appearantly not. The only one really caring about it seems to be you.

Anyone who had any clue what a trademark was, would know that only the owners of the trademark, or maybe someone they licensed the rights to would have any claim to sue over a trademark.

And as I've mentioned umpteen times now, noone owns that trademark, as isn't a trademark anymore. They have since _long_ failed the obligations they had as trademark owners to protect it as a trademark. The ticker was replaced with the boing ball all over the place, with OS4.0 it also replaced the ticker in the boot screen, and that's already plenty of years ago.

In this discussion, I am on the defendants team.  Or more accurately, suggesting that the group I want sticking around, not become defendants in a legal preceding.  It would be stupid for the AROS group to use a mark that in anyway could lead to legal trouble when there is nothing to gain by doing it.

If you're so afraid of that, then perhaps they should change the name to something different than the much occupied "AROS" as well then. There are far more legal trouble surrounding _that_ then there is with the amiga checkmark.