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According to GitHub [0]:

> Using another's trademark in a way that has nothing to do with the product or service for which the trademark was granted is not a trademark policy violation.

Many people think that if you have a trademark, you have to sue everyone who uses your name no matter what capacity they're using it in, which doesn't seem to be the case. If their usage is unrelated to yours, you have no authority to prevent them from using it however they want.

There are some exceptions to this, like the American Red Cross's logo of a red cross on a white background (nobody is allowed to use this except the red cross in any context, although it isn't always enforced) [1].

[0]: https://help.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-tradema...

[1]: https://www.bradley.com/insights/publications/2012/04/one-cr...




Also people get carried away with how estoppel works. Estoppel is a basic principle in civil law that says if Alice tells Bob it's fine for him to do X, then even if Bob is infringing on Alice's lawful rights by doing X, she doesn't get to come back later and tell a court "Hey, Bob was infringing my rights by doing X".

And that's where it definitely stops, but people get carried away and imagine now if Alice tells Bob, "Enough, I need you to stop doing X by this reasonable time" and Bob says "Fuck you Alice" and keeps doing X the court will rule for Bob. Nope. And they imagine Bob's friend Charlie might show up too, and do X and Alice has to accept that because she told Bob previously it was fine, again Nope. As a result some businesses become convinced that unless they pay lawyers to threaten every hobby project starting with the same first letter as their product the terrible "estoppel" will destroy their business.

Also just as a general principle lawyers are for avoiding disputes first, fixing existing disputes as a last resort. If you're actively paying lawyers to start shit you are probably Doing It Wrong™.




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