Under trademark law, owners of trademarks who use their trademarks improperly or who fail to police the use of their trademarks by others may lose their rights in those trademarks. For instance, now-common words such as "zipper" and "elevator" were trademarks at one time. Their owners allowed the marks to be widely known and used as generic names for the associated products, and, as a result, all trademark protection was lost. Some examples of trademarks that are protected by their owners at great lengths today from such "genericide" include Kleenex® brand facial tissues, Band-Aid® brand bandages and Xerox® brand photocopiers. In addition to monitoring the use of trademarks by others, policing also requires maintaining control over the nature and quality of the goods and services that are marketed under the trademarks.
Red Hat has filed to register the trademark in the United States Patent and Trademark Office. We are also seeking registration of the mark in many other countries around the world, have filed applications to register the mark in still other countries, and we will continue to aggressively register our trademarks in countries where we do business.
Our unregistered trademarks are also protected under trademark law. Unregistered trademarks of Red Hat include, RPM™ and Bluecurve&trade. displayFooter('$Date: 2005/11/29 17:32:12 $'); ?>