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| Discussion: Ultracade and the Mame Trademark |
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| Paul Olson:
Here's a couple more he's tring for. Multicade s/n 76629621 http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=76629621 Arcade Legends s/n 76611855 http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=76611855 I changed the links to the status pages, hopefully these wont expire. Serial numbers added in case they do (Thanks for letting me know they expired emdkay). I found them searching for "Lee Hagelshaw" in the boolean search. Paul |
| emdkay:
I've also been contacted by this hack requesting that I pay royalties to use a trademark that isn't his, nor has it even been approved yet. |
| mdekkers:
I sent the following email to the trademark office, I suggest that people who care copy and paste, and do the same: From: To: TrademarkAssistanceCenter@uspto.gov CC: lhagelshaw@aol.com, david.foley@ultracade.com Subject: Trademark Application 76627578 CC: Lee Hagelshaw, Attorney of Record, David Foley, Applicant Dear sirs, I write to you with respect to trademark application 76627578 - "MAME MULTIPLE ARCADE EMULATOR". I would like to draw your attention to the fact that I am longstanding user of a product that goes by the same name, sporting the same logo. I can, however, assure you that as far as I am aware, there is no affiliation between the original authors of MAME, and the individual or organisation attempting to trademark this name and logo. You may wish to note that the marque in question appears to have been designed by an unrelated individual, and appears to have been under copyright since 2003. I refer you to http://www.oscarcontrols.com/gallery01.htm Please note the following limited usage statement on the quoted page: "THE ABOVE DOWNLOADABLE IMAGES ARE PROVIDED IN CONFIDENCE FOR THE LIMITED PURPOSE FOR PERSONAL PRINTING AND ARE NOT TO BE REPRODUCED NOR COPIED IN WHOLE OR IN PART NOR LOANED OR OTHERWISE COMMUNICATED TO ANY THIRD PARTY, NOR USED IN ANY MANNER WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN CONSENT FROM OSCAR CONTROLS." Clearly, the quoted marque application seems to violate these terms of usage. Furthermore, to the best of my knowledge, said logo has been in use, for many years, in a commercial manner in many forms. First of all, I would like to inform you that at http://www.mamemarquees.com/ the marque itself is for sale in the form of stick-on marquees. mamemarquees.com is one of many sites selling a similar service. Moreover, many sites, such as http://www.mameworld.com rely in part on the MAME marque for advertisement revenue. In other words, there is widespread - although low-level - commercial use of the MAME marque, in logo as well as text form. In closing, I would like to inform you that MAME is a so-called "Open Source" project, meaning that the project, the work performed by this project, and any arts, intellectual properties, and other related results of productive work has mainly been performed by individuals on a volunteer basis. These people volunteer their time, skills, and knowledge out of passion for what they do, and make their core work - The MAME application suite - available free of charge, in source code form, for all to use. This is very similar to making the work available within the public domain, but not exactly, since Open Source Software typically places some obligations onto the user in terms of under what circumstances the work may be re-distributed. This is to protect the work from being "stolen". More information about open source software is available at http://www.opensource.org/ The precise license terms of the MAME body of work can be found here: http://www.mame.net/readme.html I trust to have given you plenty of information to assist in your handling of the stated application, and am sure that in the face of the information provided to you by myself, and no doubt others, that the said application will be duly rejected. Should you require any adittional information or comments, please don't hesitate to contact me. Kind regards, |
| gprime:
He's replied to the whole situation in 2 letters: http://www.ultracade.com/ (right on the front). Although he's not doing it the right way, it looks like he's just trying to stamp out MAME piracy. |
| mdekkers:
Well, I can't actually enter his site - either because his flash is kaput, or more likely because this is a frontpage slashdot story, so his server is likely to be big melting smoking pile of scrap iron by now - nevertheless, i think that given the threats of royalties or else... he is more likely to just want to make some money off this. |
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