Trademark Question: Naming of commerical solr plugin

[Sebastian <mu...@pixolution.de>]

Hello,

I'm Sebastian Müller (CTO of pixolution GmbH, http://pixolution.de) and
have a question about the naming of a product we created. We build a
closed source solr plugin that allows our customers to query their image
stock by example colors and example images. Now we think about the
naming of our product.

We offer a standalone service called "pixolution web", our solr plugin
will provide the same functionallity (visual similiarity search) for
solr users. We want to use the name "pixolution for solr" for our plugin.

I've read the page about trademarks
(http://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/), but I'm still not shure if we
would met your requirements.

 * We think the name "pixolution for solr" is not readily identifiable
as a plugin for solr without use of the trademark "solr".
 * We use only so much of the mark is reasonably necessary to identify
the product or service as a plugin for solr.
 * The name "pixolution for solr" used by pixolution in conjunction with
the mark "solr" does not suggest sponsorship or endorsement by the
trademark holder.

On the other hand, the FAQ
(http://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/faq/#products) told me that:
Apache marks may /not/ be used in the primary or secondary branding of
any third party product or service names and suggest to use a "Powered
by" approach.

Following these rules the name should be something like: "pixolution
web, Powered by Apache Solr" or "pixolution plugin, Powered by Apache Solr"

Because we offer a plugin it is misleading to use "Powered by Apache
Solr", it suggests that we built a product that internally uses Apache
Solr as core application. We just build a plugin that extend the
features of existing solr installations (using solr plugin interfaces).

When we sell our product we only deliver a plugin, it is not bundled
with Apache Solr, and therefore we would prefer to use "pixolution for
solr" instead of the "Powered by Apache Solr" approach as name of our
plugin.

I would appreciate if someone could clearify this. Thank you very much.

Best regards,
Sebastian Mueller

-- 
M. Sc. Sebastian Müller

CTO 
phone: +49(0)30 60984960
email: mueller@pixolution.de

pixolution GmbH | Sprungschanzenweg 90 | 14169 Berlin
HRB 120049 | www.pixolution.de | Follow us on LinkedIn

Geschäftsführung / executive board:
Prof. Dr. Kai-Uwe Barthel | Sebastian Müller | Michael M. Rost


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Re: Trademark Question: Naming of commerical solr plugin

[Daniel Shahaf <da...@apache.org>]

Sebastian wrote on Mon, Mar 04, 2013 at 15:37:54 +0100:
> When we sell our product we only deliver a plugin, it is not bundled
> with Apache Solr, and therefore we would prefer to use "pixolution for
> solr" instead of the "Powered by Apache Solr" approach as name of our
> plugin.
> 
> I would appreciate if someone could clearify this. Thank you very much.

Wrong number.  legal-discuss@ is not chartered to provide official
answers; for that, you should talk to trademarks@ (which, unlike this
list, is not publicly archived).

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