Cory points to an unintentionally hilarious page of instructions from Sun Microsystems, in which it explains how all humanity may use Sun’s trademarks.
All I can say is that I don’t know much about the Sun Fire’s features, and won’t be buying any Sun Rays. Java-tizing my Web page is too time-consuming, and the Sun isn’t shining on such ridiculous rules.
Posted by: Thomas H. Ptacek on September 19, 2003 01:28 PM
This sounds like overreaching stupidity, but couldn’t
it just be tunnel-visioned legal stupidity? The context
from the Sun terms of use document says “Sun trademarks
must not be used as a noun” — aren’t they just saying
they don’t want the “Kleenex” or “Xerox” problem?
I’m not saying that it’s valid, I’m just saying that maybe
it’s boilerplate legalese — not a creative new form of
stupidity.
Posted by: Larry Rosenstein on September 19, 2003 03:44 PM
I believe trademarks are always supposed to be used as adjectives. So the Sun trademark guidelines are just expressing the proper way to use trademarks.
I worked at Apple for many years, and (no surprise) Apple is very big on proper trademark and logo usage. In fact, Apple has its own page of trademark guidelines:
http://www.apple.com/legal/guidelinesfor3rdparties.html
There’s also an up to date list of Apple’s trademarks online, which makes for an interesting trip down memory lane:
Posted by: Matthew Ernest on September 20, 2003 10:45 AM
Compare that to the Knight-Ridder trademark notice at http://www.knightridder.com/notices.html which says you can’t use them in any way at all.
Ooops, I just used a Knight-Ridder trademark without permission! Oh no, I did it again!
Posted by: Sunidesus on September 19, 2003 09:49 AM
Hehe, that was funny.