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Originally Posted by phrontist
FIRST has a very harmful and awkwardly contrived "corporate" stance on it's logo. ...
On preview: I don't think FIRST can lose any legal rights based on what non-FIRST entities (see: teams) do...
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look into the history of trademark ownership, its pretty interesting. A couple companys over the years have lost their trademarks, because the word came into common usage, it became generic
Xerox has fought hard for years to prevent 'making a xerox' from becoming equal to 'making a copy'. If they fail then any corporation can call their copiers 'xerox' machines.
Kodak has also battled over the years to keep 'Kodak' from being turned into a verb 'kodaking' for taking photos
if FIRST loses their trademark and corporate identity then anyone can collect money, sell products, or host robotic competitions and call themselves FIRST robotics. We dont want that. We dont want some bunch of telemarketers fund raising for 'first robotics', and the money that people wanted to donate to us ends up in someone elses pocket.
Its taken years for this organization to grow into what it is. We want that protected, we want our identity protected.
there is absolutely nothing wrong with those of us in the FIRST community creating our own culture, or counter culture and coming up with our own name for things, our own symbols, slogans... we can be as creative as we want
in fact, that would be something new, if people involved with this program developed some sort of sub-culture within our society.