Finger Graffiti

David "Lefty" Schlesinger lefty at access-company.com
Mon Jul 30 15:57:39 CEST 2007


Jay Vaughan wrote:
> it just happens that Graffiti is what people know "finger painting on
> your PDA" to be .. its common enough to warrant usage as a word
> referring to the activity of finger-painting symbols for recognition
> on a devices surface.
No, sorry, this is incorrect, and precisely _why_ I have to point out
that Graffiti is a registered trademark: it is _not_ a generic term for
"finger painting on your PDA", "Graffiti" refers to a specific writing
system and implementation of that system, and no other.

The reason for mentioning trademark status is specifically to keep it
from _becoming_ a generic term (like "zipper", "kleenex" and, to an
extent, "xerox", have become generic terms), and is something which, as
I've said, holding a trademark obligates the owner to do. Sean and team
will be obliged to do precisely the same sort of thing if they become
aware of someone (mis)using the "OpenMoko" trademark in some way that
they didn't intend.

This is basic trademark law, I'm afraid.






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