Name for free software project?

[Bernhard Reiter]

Hi Hanno,

On Thu, Dec 01, 2005 at 05:47:12PM +0100, Hanno Böck wrote:
> I hope this is the right place for such a question.

sure, this is open discussion.
Note that if you wanted to ask in German,
fsfe-de@ would be another place for questions like this.
http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-de

> The problem: It's nearly impossible to find a name that isn't used somewhere 
> else. 

Actually that is not so hard,
one of my favorites links is http://www.dwheeler.com/totro.html
Then you can always use an animal or a word in a different language
to construct something new and cannot be used easily as a trademark.

> And even if the name is absolutely new, you can't be sure if someone 
> thinks that it sounds similar to something else.

It generally is okay to have a sound like something else.
The question is: Would a reasonable person find you infringing a trademark?
Not all words can be a trademark alone, 
general words like "book", usually cannot.

> Now, how can someone be sure to choose a name for a project and that I won't 
> be sued for it?

Suing can occur anytime even without a cause, there is not absolute certainty.
You can only get a reasonable ground.

First try a search engine to see if the term is already used.
Secondly think about commercial projects (Free Software or not)
that use similiar names; you want to have a distance for this.
Third: (optional) get a written statment by a laywer to raise chances.
Lawyers, like you, can lookup trademark databases. 
And they can give some sort of guarantee when they do it for money 
and in writing.

> As there were a lot of strange lawsuits because of project names (e.g. the 
> mobilix-case), it seems nearly impossible to be safe with it.
>
> 
> Any suggestions about that?

Act in good faith, use at least setp 1 and 2 described above.

	Bernhard
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