NZ Developers Win 'Koha' Trademark Case 26
An anonymous reader writes "Horowhenua Libraries Trust has successfully challenged a 2011 decision to let American company Liblime PTFS trademark in New Zealand the word Koha, the name of its library management system. That application was approved by the then Ministry of Economic Development, a decision appealed by the Horowhenua Library Trust and software firm Catalyst IT. A judgment delivered by assistant commissioner of trademarks Jennie Walden found the two pieces of software were largely the same and that it was likely a 'substantial number' of people would be confused or deceived if Liblime used the Koha trademark." Here's a previous Slashdot article discussing the PTFS/Liblime's trademark application.
Another riveting Slashdot story for Monday morning (Score:4, Funny)
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At this rate I might have to do some work!
Yes! (I mean NOOO!)
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Slashdot tip to brighten your day:
1. Get up.
2. Greet the first person you see with a compliment and a big smile.
3. If you're feeling adventurous give them a hug.
4. Report your findings here.
Good luck.
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If it were a slashdot tip it would include:
5. ?????
6. Profit!
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No shit. Where's that thank you for being a friend guy when you need him?
Koha (Score:5, Informative)
Does not matter (Score:2)
It really does not metter if it is the common-language word. Look at SPINNING(tm). Then look at http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soubor:Spinning_the_Bikes_1894.jpg [wikipedia.org] and you will stop wondering. BTW SPINNING(tm) applies also to NZ. :-(
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That makes no difference. The claim wasn't over it being a common language word (which it is here), it's over it being deceptive in the trademark sense. i.e. that there is something in the same space with the same name that's well known.
GP's question is perfectly relevant.
Source: I was physically at the Koha trademark hearing.
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Sometimes it's a voluntary donation, sometimes it is not and you'd better pay the koha.
Sometimes it is used as a blatant bribe to grease the wheels. (but koha sounds so much nicer than bribe doesn't it
Traditionally it's food, but not these days. Cold hard cash thankyouverymuch.
(True story - koha in action
There's a band that travels the North Island here and plays in the various small town pubs.
With each given pub they have a choice; voluntary door charge (k
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That's the definition. In my experience, it's a way of demanding payment unofficially, as in "Nah, bro, that won't cost you, but some koha would be appropriate", and it's not reciprocal.
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If cost could come into it, there there is some reciprocity involved. I (accurately or otherwise) think of it more as a kind of token trade. You're staying on someone's couch, you buy the beer. Someone gives you a lift a long way, you give them some petrol money. That kind of thing.
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As explained in this brief but very informative video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE_IUPInEuc [youtube.com]
Apparently it's decent software (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, and it's open source... (Score:5, Informative)
Good (Score:4, Informative)
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LibLime doesn't deploy or develop on Koha any more. They have their own product they call Koha which is a several year old fork of the mainline Koha that they sell. The real Koha has moved on a long, long way now.
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> It's not as robust as normal commercial library systems software
There are two things wrong here :)
a) it is a commercial library system. I get paid to work on it, to host it, to support it. So do many other people and companies. That's about as commercial as you can get.
b) libraries tend to like it more than their previous proprietary system because it is more robust. It doesn't crash (unless you overload it, but it handles that better than many other systems), it doesn't lose branches for days at a ti