[Cryptech Core] ipr, ghu forbid

[Rob Austein]

I am not a lawyer and do not play one on the net.  That said, for
various reasons I have had some basics whacked into my head.  Confirm
with competent lawyer before believing any of this, but:

* Yes, trademark is local, for some definition of local.  But there's
  this concept of "famous marks", eg, Microsoft.

* The real test with trademark is whether there's reasonable chance of
  confusion.  One of the canonical examples of non-confusion used to
  be Apple Records vs Apple Computer: different industries, so no
  confusion until the DNS came along and the question of who got
  apple.com came up.  Then Apple Computer got into the music
  business....  At any rate, if the relevant court holds that there's
  no reasonable chance of confusion, there's no infringement...but
  there's the "famous mark" thing again, where a name like Microsoft
  is so well known that a small pillow branded Microsoft would be
  presumed to be in some way associated with the Borg of Redmond.

* Unlike copyright, trademark lapses unless vigorously defended, so
  trademark layers tend to be rabid and prone to preemptive strikes.

* The above is undoubtedly slanted towards the US legal system and, to
  a lesser extent, towards the legal systems of the other 800kg
  gorillas, but my impression is that the general principles apply
  fairly widely, if only because of pressure from the 800kg gorillas.
  WIPO and its predecessors have been around since 1893 and have yet
  to report their first significant victory in harmonizing trademark
  law world-wide, so it's a mess, with only one universal rule:

* Money talks.