Last Summer one of my colleagues had to prepare a presentation on Java to a client. When I looked at it, I got goose bumps – his document had the image of Duke in there. I knew that it was illegal – Sun trademarks everything and anything when it comes to Java language wordings and images.
Outsourcing Java meant the end of the jail time for Duke – it’s free now.
Adobe Flex frameworks is open sourced now, and my question is this are we, third-party developers allowed to use the word Flex as a part of the name of our products? For example, next week we are releasing four commercial plugins – DaoFlex, Flex2Ant, Log4Flex, and Flex2Doc, and the FlexBI in a month. None of these names uses the word Flex as is, but rather as a part of the product name. Is this legal? Are we allowed to use the Fx image anywhere in our logos, headers, product screens?
Sun Microsystems published their trademarks document, which is not too easy to understand but at least it’s something. Does Adobe have a similar document regarding the Flex-related trademarks?
I’d appreciate if someone from Adobe legal team could answer my questions using the sample names that I mentioned above…and preferably in English so regular people could understand it too. I’m sure such information would be useful for the entire Flex community.
Thanks,
Yakov Fain
Mike Potter said,
May 4, 2007 @ 9:01 am
I’m talking to one of our lawyers today about something else, and I’ll try and get an answer for you.
Mike
Jeremy said,
May 4, 2007 @ 9:50 am
Just based on what I’ve seen in recent years, you probably wont be able to use those names. Of course Mike will know for sure.
Two examples come to mind: FlashObject was recently changed to SWFObject and Screenweaver MX had to drop the MX portion. You can probably use something like Ant for Flex.
Mark Piller said,
May 4, 2007 @ 11:28 am
Another example is FlashORB which got renamed to WebORB. There is a story behind that too
Daniel Freiman said,
May 21, 2007 @ 9:41 am
Looks like the answer is no. See: http://www.adobe.com/misc/trade.html. Point 1 says “You may not incorporate or include Adobe trademarks in your company name, product name, domain name, or in the name of your service.” We’ll see if Mike comes back with anything different.
Josh said,
May 21, 2007 @ 7:35 pm
I’ve heard through the grapevine that Adobe will consider names like “MyProduct for Flex”.