Trademarks-You can’t not use them!

Michelle Petrone-Fleming, In-House Counsel

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What you came to hear….

You came to hear about using trademark policy pertaining to Asterisk® to your benefit and pitfalls to avoid….

AstriCon, Asterisk, and the Asterisk Bubble Logo are trademarks of Digium, Inc.

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Going one step beyond the planned session

We’re going to go a step beyond that.

Say how YOU would revise our trademark policy- give your opinion!

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Top two debated trademark procedures related to Asterisk

Viewed from the following perspectives

Open Source- Non-profit

Open Source- For profit

Closed Source- Commercial users (Digium channel partners/licensees)

Discussion about the merits/problems with certain trademark procedures

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Now for some news on our upcoming trademark enforcement procedures and how YOUR feedback provided today may shape those procedures!

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Stepping up policing of trademark issues

In the next few weeks following AstriCon, Digium will be stepping up enforcement efforts.

Letters will be sent or persons will be otherwise contacted if our initial assessment of the use leads us to believe there is a violation of our policy.

If you receive a letter or are otherwise contacted and believe you should not have been, please contact me at trademarks@digium.com. It’s possible we may have misunderstood your use of Asterisk and you should not have received the letter or been otherwise contacted.

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Now, let’s get warmed up. Who uses the Asterisk mark the most?

Laptops down stand up

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Sit down if…

You’ve never purchased an item (outside of AstriCon® materials) with the ™ logo on it

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Sit down if…

You (or the company you work for) doesn’t own or maintain a website on which Asterisk is mentioned somewhere.

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Sit down if…

You or the company you work for has never used the logo on your website, in marketing materials, or in any other way during yours or your company’s use, sales, or development of Asterisk

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Sit down if…

You don’t use, sell, or develop Asterisk.

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Sit down if…

You have never written an article, blog, forum post, or other public writing in which Asterisk is mentioned

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Sit down if…

You have never purchased the word Asterisk as an Adword or Keyword on Google™ or purchased the word Asterisk to otherwise influence any search engine rankings or results listings

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Sit down if…

You or the company you work for has never registered a domain name with the word Asterisk in it

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Still standing?

Congratulations- I will be calling on YOU!

Just kidding

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Time to get to work- the dividing line of opinion…

Trademark policy serves to prevent confusion as to source of the source

Trademark policy hinders software development

Meeting in the middle- tell me how YOU would revise the top two debated policies!

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Crossing the divide- round of participants to discuss policy changes

The top two debated trademark policies as they are now

And how they look shaped with your input!

Let’s see how many persons in each category we have- round up of participants

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Before we begin….

What will be done with feedback

Proposed policy changes are solicited in order to reevaluate the current policy and to take back for further discussion- but implementation of proposed changes is not guaranteed. The policy which best fits the feedback received here today and also accomplishes the goal of preventing consumer confusion will be implemented.

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Top two debated trademark policies with regard to Asterisk

Use of Asterisk in a domain name

Use of the Asterisk bubble logo

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Use of the word Asterisk in a domain name

Use of the word Asterisk in a domain name. Generally not allowed- but exceptions are frequently granted based on the below factors.

Factors considered:

Similarity in the domain name itself to www.asterisk.org or any other Digium maintained websites. For example, www.asterisk.info would be problematic, but www.john’sasterisktutorials.com would be less problematic.

Content of page- whether the content duplicates a Digium maintained website.

Whether the purpose is for profit or not

Whether the domain name registrant is under a commercial contract with Digium or not.

Any country code Top Level Domain and legal residency requirements

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Logo usage

Usage

Factors considered:

Must be in the form in which it was originally distributed by Digium.

Non-profit use always allowed so long as user is in compliance with the rest of our trademark policy

For profit use only with commercial agreement with Digium

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The reason for our trademark policies…

AstriConTrademarks Gone Wrong10092009.pptx

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Domain Policy

Pros Cons

OS/ Non-profit

OS/for-profit

Closed Source

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Domain policy- your way!

How would YOU revise the domain policy?

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Asterisk Bubble Logo Policy

Pros Cons

OS/Non-profit

OS/for-profit

Closed Source

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Asterisk Bubble Logo policy- your way!

How would YOU revise the logo policy?

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Wrap Up

Thank you for participating!

Questions or final comments?

Feel free to send any additional feedback regarding our trademark policy to trademarks@digium.com.