Discussion List Archives

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Renewal of STAR File trademark registration

Dear All
The IUCr Executive Secretary has received a renewal notice forthe registered trademark "STAR File" that expires at the end ofthe year. There is a cost involved and the Executive Secretaryhas queried whether we still want to protect this trademark.
The trademark was registered in 2001 with the UK IntellectualProperty Office as an outcome of the COMCIFS discussions in2000 that led to the policy statement on the CIF websitehttps://www.iucr.org/resources/cif/comcifs/policy
That statement includes the following paragraph:
      Protection of the standards      To protect the STAR File and the CIF as standards for interchanging      and archiving electronic data, the IUCr, on behalf of the      scientific community,
        * holds the copyrights on the standards themselves,        * owns the associated trademarks and service marks, and        * holds a patent on the STAR File.
      These intellectual property rights relate solely to the interchange      formats, not to the data contained therein, nor to the software      used in the generation, access or manipulation of the data.
Note that the STAR File patent has now expired in the sole jurisdictionwhere it was filed (the UK), so the statement should now be revised atleast to reflect that fact.
So far as we can ascertain, the only active trademark registration isthat for "STAR File", but I shall can the Executive Secretary to reviewpaper files for 2001 when he returns to the office. According to mynotes, "STAR File" was used as a test case but ran into somemeasure of difficult as predicted by Nick Spadaccini inhttps://www.iucr.org/__data/iucr/lists/comcifs-l/msg00055.html
Obviously the difficulties were overcome in this case, but Idon't know if the then Executive Secretary pursued other registrationattempts (e.g. for "CIF").
I invite comment.
RegardsBrian_______________________________________________comcifs mailing listcomcifs@iucr.orghttp://mailman.iucr.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/comcifs