On 10/31/05, Rowan Collins [email protected] wrote:
Just to clarify, terms don't have to "be trademarked" to become a trademark; they simply have to be decalred (and defended) as such. You *can* "register" a trademark, and that carries extra weight in various legal ways, but (as I understand it) something basically becomes a trademark as soon as you declare it to be one.
A mark becomes a trademark as soon as it is "used in trade". Declaring it a trademark isn't enough; you have to actually use it in trade. In our case, publishing the MediaWiki software product constitutes "use in trade".
I would also add that copyright ownership of a piece of software need not have anything to do with ownership of the trademark. MediaWiki is published by and advertised by the Wikimedia Foundation; they're the senior user of the mark in trade and thereby entitled to own the mark.
Kelly