| |
Dave Baum <dbaum@spambgoneenteract.com> wrote:
> However, they are wary of people using (and possibly abusing) the Lego
> brand. This is understandable...the brand has a lot of value and they
> wouldn't want poor-quality products by third parties to in any way
> compromise that brand. Furthermore, since the brand has such high value,
> it is perfectly reasonable for them to expect payment for use of their
> brand (i.e. licensing fees).
However, it seems extremely unreasonable in the case of books about a
product. In fact, although I'm not a lawyer, this use of trademarks seems
100% within the precedent set for fair use: it's impossible to describe
_without_ using the trademark.
The classic example is: if writing about the Boston Marathon (a trademark of
the Boston Athletic Association), you don't have to call it "that 42.2k race
they have in Boston every year" -- you can actually call it "the Boston
Marathon". The same applies to a book specifically about Lego Mindstorms --
you don't have to call it a book about "the robotic construction set from
the famous maker of interlocking plastic building blocks".
I can understand why O'Reilly wouldn't want to go to court over this, but
I'm pretty sure that if it came to that, TLC wouldn't have much to stand on.
--
Matthew Miller ---> mattdm@mattdm.org
Quotes 'R' Us ---> http://quotes-r-us.org/
|
|
Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: O'Reilly book news
|
| (...) Not to mention, of course, the whole thing where these books are nothing but beneficial to Lego, and much more beneficial if they actually use their name in the title. (To make another analogy: a book called "How to use Linux" is nice for Red (...) (24 years ago, 8-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics, lugnet.dear-lego)
| | | Re: O'Reilly book news
|
| (...) There's tons of precedent on using trademarked names in titles of books. I don't believe my publisher was ever seriously concerned about losing a court case. But they didn't want to bother going to court, and there's a lot of value in a good (...) (24 years ago, 8-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics, lugnet.dear-lego)
|
Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: O'Reilly book news
|
| (...) I assume Jonathan (and ORA) went through the same discussions my publisher did with TLG regarding using "Mindstorms" in a book title. Lego had no problem at all with people writing books...in fact I've gotten a lot of encouraging feedback from (...) (24 years ago, 7-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics, lugnet.dear-lego) !
|
45 Messages in This Thread:
  
- Entire Thread on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
This Message and its Replies on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
|
|
|
|
