[mythtv] Video Sources - time to call them what they are?

[f-myth-users at media.mit.edu]

    > Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 20:20:19 +0000
    > From: Justin Hornsby <justin at mythtvthemes.co.uk>

    > Regarding the fact 'TV Guide' is a trademarked name - isn't 'Windows' 
    > also trademarked?  What am I supposed to say when I want to tell 
    > somebody I've been looking out at the world through the 
    > rectangular-shaped portals in my house? ;)

Trademarks are (primarily) limited by two things:
(a) Geography.  Many are not valid worldwide or even countrywide.
(b) Product.  A trademark is only valid within a particular set of goods.

What this means is that, in theory, "Windows" may be a trademark for
an operating system, -and- a trademark for (say) a glass cleaner, and
they may share this trademark in the same geographic region.  The
crucial test is whether the two products are likely to be confused
for one another, since that's the whole point of what trademarks are
trying to prevent.  If there's negligible probability of confusion,
both may stand.  [This is one of many reasons, btw, why it's risky
to have a trademark that's a well-known, common, correctly-spelled
word, and why most are invented and "unlikely" spellings/phrasings.
In fact, Microsoft chose very badly, running afoul of a host of
"generic" issues, as the Lindows lawsuit of '04-ish proved.  See
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1076428297954 and many others;
it's bad enough that MS chose a common word, but one that was -already-
being used years earlier to describe the -same- concept (e.g., what we
think of as a window on a screen) was horrendously stupid and the
epitomy of unbridled chutzpah.  Imagine if Micron tried to trademark
"RAM" to refer to memory and think about how successful they might be.]

Unfortunately, the use of "TV Guide" in a myth context -is- highly
likely to be confused with the use of "TV Guide" in the schedules-
printed-in-a-little-booklet-at-the-supermarket-checkout-counter,
since they're both talking about "things related to watching TV."
(I'll bet a trade magazine aimed at transvestites -could- use the
term "TV Guide", as long as they steered clear of the well-known
logo for the scheduling guide, too, since there is (one hopes! :)
little possibility of confusion...  Of course, prudent advice would
be to avoid using it altogether, since even winning in court doesn't
necessarily compensate for spending huge amounts of money and time
proving the point; who needs the aggravation?  So most entities that
aren't spoiling for a fight try to research existing trademarks and
steer clear of them.)