Fwd: Linux Documentation Author Werner Heuser threatened with 6 months imprisonment or 250.000.- EURO penalty for supposed tradmark infringment

Wed Jan 9 21:20:28 UTC 2002

John Tapsell <tapselj0 at cs.man.ac.uk> cites:

> The trademark Obelix was registered by German lawyer Guenter Freiherr
> v. Gravenreuth. The legal charge is up to 250.000 USD or six months
> prison. The costs of the first instance are app. 15.000 USD. Werner
> Heuser has decided not to withdraw the name "MobiliX".

The problam is that "Obelix" is probably a well-known trademar and not
easily refuted -- and it can clearly be shown in court that "MobiliX"
and "Obelix" sound confusingly similar.  Looks like a lost case, IMHO.

-- 
Florian Weimer 	                  Weimer at CERT.Uni-Stuttgart.DE
University of Stuttgart           http://CERT.Uni-Stuttgart.DE/people/fw/
RUS-CERT                          +49-711-685-5973/fax +49-711-685-5898