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The information on Groklaw is not intended to constitute legal advice. While Mark is a lawyer and he has asked other lawyers and law students to contribute articles, all of these articles are offered to help educate, not to provide specific legal advice. They are not your lawyers.

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You have a point. | 360 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
What about "Olympics"
Authored by: PJ on Tuesday, May 14 2013 @ 06:55 AM EDT
I assume it's trademarked by the folks who
run the one and only Olympics? If so, you
should see the difference in the description,
in that the German company isn't the only
entity in the world who does hackathons, nor
are they the first, nor are they famous for
doing hackathons.

So it's quite different. A trademark is
supposed to be for letting the public know
where goods and/or services are coming
from, so they are not misled. Personally,
I think it's too late for anyone to get
the mark, because it isn't associated in
the public's mind with anybody. Maybe Sun
could make an argument, but even that would
be weird.

You are not supposed to be able to trademark
dictionary words that are just descriptive.
If OpenBSD or Sun had zealously guarded the
mark as their very own for years and years,
they could make an argument, but everyone
has, without challenge, used the mark for
decades, so it's really too late for the mark
to become proprietary to anyone when used to
mean what the word means. You could probably
trademark Hackathon Soap Powder or name your
band Hackathon and trademark that, because it's
using the word outside its usual meaning.

That'd be a great band name, actually.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

You have a point.
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, May 14 2013 @ 09:59 AM EDT
The International Olympic Committee seem to have got away with it though. Link

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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