Answer Of The Week

• Answer to: Copyright or Trademark? From Lawrence Garvin
• Followup to "Why not carry"

Answer to "Copyright or Trademark"
From Lawrence Garvin

In response to last week's "Question of the Week", I offer this simple reply.

As is correctly posted in the nodelist, Fidonews, and other sources from time to time:

;A Fido, FidoNet and the dog-with-diskette are registered trademarks
;A of Tom Jennings, San Francisco California, USA.

The "dog with diskette" is registered under serial number 73665098 and registration number 1503643 and was registered on 9/13/1988.
The registration document may be viewed at:

[Update: The following three URLs cannot be used as originally printed. The site returns 'search session expired.' Maybe using cookies or something similar. In any case the way to find this info is to visit http://tess.uspto.gov to 'login' and then use their search engine. [jb]]

http://tess.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=doc&state=qt7asi.3.3

The name "Fido" is registered under serial number 73665097 and registration number 1498374 and was registered on 8/2/1988.
The registration document may be viewed at:

http://tess.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=doc&state=qt7asi.3.4

The name "Fidonet" is registered under serial number 73591035 and registration number 1452977 and was registered on 8/18/1987.
The registration document may be viewed at:

http://tess.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=doc&state=qt7asi.3.5

All trademark registrations have a registration period of 20 years and are renewable indefinitely.

The words "Fido" and "Fidonet" are not copyrighted, as it's generally held in U.S. copyright law that words cannot be copyrighted. The image of the dog-with-diskette should be presumed to be copyrighted, as copyright does generally extend to works of art.

Lawrence Garvin
1:106/6018

Followup to "Why not carry"
From Lawrence Garvin

Bob Seaborn expressed in this column last week some valid reasons for not distributing Zone 2 echos, carte blanch, within the auspicies of the North American Backbone.

He offered an excellent suggestion to resolve this potential conflict.

I would like to describe at least one situation in which this suggestion has contributed successfully in the placement of a non-Zone-1 echo on the Zone 1 distribution systems, and encourage other Zone 1 sysops to contribute, each according to their interests.

The Echolist entry for IP_CONNECT reads as follows:

IP_CONNECT
[ * * * ]
Moderators: Ward Dossche, 2:292/854
Lawrence Garvin (Z1 Custodian), 1:106/6018,
Last changed: 10-Apr-2001 by Lawrence Garvin, 1:106/6018

And, as anybody who frequents that echo can attest, I'm only infrequently a participant, much less anything resembling a moderator. In fact, I'm generally at odds with Ward's policies concerning Fidonet, though we have had civil exchanges of interest on non-Fido topics in other echos. However, I did see a beneficial interest to the sysops of Zone 1 to Echolist this echo and ensure it continues to be distributed in Zone 1 according to the Zone 1 policies and rules. So, I volunteered to get it listed and distributed.

It's not my intent to 'toot my own horn' here... but to encourage others to get involved. The concept does work and it's an excellent way to get an out-of-zone echo transported on the Zone 1 systems without asking those systems to compromise their legitimate policies.