Blog: Trademark clarifications

Comments still open:

http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/04/18/more-on-trademarks/

So, did this clear up anything you were wondering about?
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They completely ignore the issue that the mainstream press aren't held to these standards, they completely ignore fair use. No it doesn't clear anything up, more waffle and balderdash.

Residents promote this place.

There are plenty of other things to write about. If you're not getting paid for blogging why bother remembering alt 153 and alt 174?

Second Life's got plenty of publicity. Other virtual worlds need publicity. Blog about them.

There are very many issues on which Linden Labs legitimately deserves criticism.

I'm not sure that its trademark policy is one of them.

Trademark law requires any company to aggressively protect trademarks, or risk losing them.

After reading the blog cited by the OP, it seems to me that Linden Labs did everything it could to hint that it was not going to enforce its policy on causual residents in a draconian matter, without coming out and saying that they would not aggressively enforce the policy against everyone. (By actually admitting that they did not plan to aggressively enforce the policy against everyone, the lose the trademark protection that the policy gives them.)

The new trademark policy has been in place for quite a few weeks now. Has anyone actually received a cease-and-desist letter from Linden Labs yet based on this policy?

Agreed and so they should. There have been guidelines on use of the trademark for quite some time here, it's not new, the new policy just goes a lot further and adds new trademarks into the equation.



Again agreed, saying that it's ok to ignore guidelines would be opening a big can of worms but the additional clause in the TOS is not needed, they already have the "any reason or no reason" clause.



There's a ninety day amnesty so nobody at all should be getting cease-and-desist letters during this period.