Claims of Conformance (was: Re: CLDR and ICU)

On 7/26/2012 4:20 PM, Richard Wordingham wrote:
> Perhaps I've read too much into
> http://www.unicode.org/policies/logo_policy.html . The implication is
> that untrue or misleading claims using the word 'Unicode' are
> contravening the trademark.

That's more on the level of making sure that when you use the "Unicode Mark"
mark, you are actually referring to the Unicode Standard, the Unicode
Consortium,
and so on.

You cannot slap the Unicode Mark on a self-publication of UTF-37 with your
own idiosyncratic code tables and call that "Unicode". *That* would be a
violation
of the trademark.

It is a whole nother kettle of fish when somebody says of their product
"This product conforms to the Unicode Standard, Version 6.2.0." There
would be nothing misleading about their use of the Unicode Mark in
such a case -- they are actually referring to the actual standard which
claims the trademark. The reference is not misleading.

But the *claim* of conformance could be false, if their product is examined
in detail. (Or tested, or reverse engineered, or whatever.) And *that*
is the part that the Unicode Consortium has neither the personnel nor
the inclination to be chasing after. The Consortium cannot police such
claims, especially for a standard as widely implemented as this one.

The same would apply to claims of conformance to the other standards,
such as UCA, LDML, Unicode Regex, and so on.

--Ken
Received on Thu Jul 26 2012 - 18:44:34 CDT