Re: Is "Unicode" a registered trademark?

From: Martin J. Duerst (duerst@w3.org)
Date: Tue Mar 17 1998 - 22:31:31 EST


At 16:28 98/03/17 -0800, Adrian Havill wrote:
> Just curious as to how protected the word is...

> What are the legal requirements for usage of the word "Unicode?" Can a software
> package brag on the outside of it's wrapping about supporting UTF-8, etc.,
> without permission from TUC?

We got very useful answers on this for "Unicode". But what about things
such as UTF-8,...? It would be nice to know more about them.

They definitely seem not to be protected by trademarks.
But they are used in ISO 10646, which may give them some kind
of legal status. Also, they are used as identifiers in many protocols,
and in these cases, we would get into great trouble if anybody wanted
to forbid their use, or to request that a "(tr)" is attached :-).
Of course, we get into great trouble likewise if these things are
used to claim something wrongly, in particular inside protocols :-(.

Regards, Martin.



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