[Freeswitch-users] How about a USER FORUM and kill off the mail list?

[Michael Collins]

On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 7:39 AM, Ken Rice <krice at freeswitch.org> wrote:

>  You cant use FreeSWITCHForum.com as a domain name without violating
> FreeSWITCH Trademarks... Now you are putting the project maintainers in an
> awkward position as you can not keep your trademarks protected unless you
> defend them...
>

This is a slippery slope. If the target server is in a country whose laws
differ from the country where the trademark was established then it's a
huge mess. However, the safe thing to do is to call it the "Unofficial
FreeSWITCH Forum" and have a disclaimer on the site itself and say that
"FreeSWITCH is a registered trademark of Anthony Minessale.
FreeSWITCHForum.com is not in any way endorsed by, or affiliated with, the
FreeSWITCH project."

As far as "defending" the trademark - that's also a slippery slope.
Trademarks are a form of IP that are designed to protect consumers, not
trademark holders. A trademark holder must only "defend" if there is some
sort of activity that may cause "confusion" or "dilution" or something
similar. Simply creating a website with "FreeSWITCH" in the domain name is
not an act of trademark infringement, even in the US. However, if the title
on the web page said "Official FreeSWITCH Forum" then that would absolutely
be an act of trademark infringement because people would be "confused" -
that is, people would think that the site was sponsored/endorsed by the
trademark holder when in fact it is not. Also, deceptive domain names could
be infringing, like www.officialfreeswitchforum.com.

I recommend that the OP politely ask Anthony if he has an reservations
about the OP running a site called "FreeSWITCH Forum".

-MC
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