You cannot get trademark protection for anything "functional". To the
extent that the Habeus magic words are used functionally, I do not think
they are eligible for trademark protection.
Ditto copyright: "Works that may not be protectable by copyright include:
.... short phrases and slogans, familiar symbols or designs, and other
works lacking sufficient creativity or independent effort; designs of
useful articles or products where the designs are not conceptually
separable from the functional aspects of the article or product; works
consisting only of information that is in the public domain; and blank
forms and other works which are designed for recording information and
which do not in themselves convey information."
(source: American Law Institute - American Bar Association Continuing
Legal Education April 10-11, 2003 Trademarks, Copyrights, and Unfair
Competition for the General Practitioner and the Corporate Counsel COURSE
OVERVIEW Ronald L. Panitch SH085 ALI-ABA 361)
Functional things are eligible to be patented.
Thus, I have grave doubts as to the strength of this footing under IP law.
There might be alternate legal theories that would work a little
better....
I could go into considerably greater detail as to why, and also as to what
the counter-argument might look like, but I'd have to charge you...
On Fri, 6 Jun 2003 Valdis(_dot_)Kletnieks(_at_)vt(_dot_)edu wrote:
[...]
IANAL, but it looks to me like the Habeas crew is on fairly strong legal
footing. Also, they're not trying to stop spam directly. They're providing
two services: (a) a header tag that you can use to filter your inbound
mail for *NON*-spam, and (b) the chance for any spammers to spend enough
money on legal fees to render it unprofitable.
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