[CLUE-Talk] RedHat Sues SCO

[Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

On Mon, 2003-08-04 at 20:53, Jed S. Baer wrote:

> Now if I only knew what the Lanham act was about. A findlaw.com search
> comes up with too many links, none of them to useful pages -- for someone
> (like me) wanting just a summary.

The "Lanham Act" is the Federal Trademark Act of 1946 (the "Lanham
Act"). According to this page
(http://www.caadrs.org/studies/lanhamstudy.htm#FN1) Lanham concerns
"cases involving trademark/service mark infrindgment, unfair
competition, false advertising, trade disparagement and trademark
dilution."

Text of the act in lawyerese is here:
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/inp25.htm
(May not be 100% current)

Bitlaw has a word index of the Lanham Act:
http://www.bitlaw.com/source/15usc/wordindex.html

There's a 50-year history of the Lanham Act here:
http://www.inta.org/about/lanham.html

One note on the RH v. SCO case -- a lot of people have been confusing
Red Hat's request for a declaratory judgement with a request for summary
judgement. 

Declaratory Judgement: "One which simply declares the rights of the
parties or expresses the opinion of the court on a question of law,
without ordering anything to be done." (Black's Law Dictionary) "In
additon to clarifying the meaning and intent of law in a particular
circumstance, a declaratory judgement provides protection from liability
for those who rely upon the court's interpretation."

Summary Judgement: "a court order ruling that no factual issues remain
to be tried and therefore a cause of action or all causes of action in a
complaint can be decided upon certain facts without trial. A summary
judgment is based upon a motion by one of the parties that contends that
all necessary factual issues are settled or so one-sided they need not
be tried. The motion is supported by declarations under oath, excerpts
from depositions which are under oath, admissions of fact and other
discovery, as well as a legal argument (points and authorities), that
argue that there are no triable issues of fact and that the settled
facts require a summary judgment for the moving party. The opposing
party will respond by counter-declarations and legal arguments
attempting to show that there are "triable issues of fact." If it is
unclear whether there is a triable issue of fact in any cause of action,
then summary judgment must be denied as to that cause of action. The
theory behind the summary judgment process is to eliminate the need to
try settled factual issues and to decide without trial one or more
causes of action in the complaint. The pleading procedures are extremely
technical and complicated and are particularly dangerous to the party
against whom the motion is made." (http://dictionary.law.com/)

Zonker
-- 
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier
jzb at dissociatedpress.net
Aim: zonkerjoe
http://www.dissociatedpress.net