Hi, On Wed, Aug 05, 2015 at 08:31:03PM -0400, Greg Shatan wrote:
There are some important distinctions that are being blurred here.
Well, I'm certainly not trying to blur anything, but lest anyone mistake me for a trademark lawyer, let me be clear that I'm not. The IETF Trust has a lawyer, and when acting as a trustt I do what he tells me to because as far as I can tell he's an expert in his field. But …
3. The IETF Trust "Trademark Usage Guidelines" supplied by Andrew Sullivan and found at http://trustee.ietf.org/trademark-usage-guidelines.html are just that -- Trademark Usage Guidelines.
Yes. I thought that was clear.
or specifications," but there is no indication of any minimum quality standards for these products or services or any indication that quality control will be actively exercised (e.g., approvals, samples, site inspections). The license referenced in these guidelines asks for samples of use of the marks, but does not ask for samples of the goods and services, or indicate any way that would be accomplished.
My understanding -- but it would probably be better to ask the Trust directly, since I'm just reflecting my own understanding -- is that you don't see that because the only people who are licensees at the moment work so closely with us that in fact we see all the uses. That is, the only actual licensee at the moment is AMS (as you can see on http://trustee.ietf.org/licenses.html). AMS handles the IETF secretariat functions and therefore every trustee sees all these uses all the time. It is nevertheless true that there's no formal quality control program in place. In any case, as I've tried to suggest, most of this is better asked of the IETF counsel or directed at the trust, instead of it being discussed on this list. It's not hard to contact the trust. You can send mail to trustees@ietf.org, just like it says on the website (http://trustee.ietf.org/index.html). Best regards, A -- Andrew Sullivan ajs@anvilwalrusden.com