Trademarks-You can’t not use them! Michelle Petrone-Fleming, In-House Counsel

2 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement What you came to hear….  You came to hear about using trademark policy pertaining to Asterisk ® to your benefit and pitfalls to avoid…. AstriCon, Asterisk, and the Asterisk Bubble Logo are trademarks of Digium, Inc.

3 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement Going one step beyond the planned session  We’re going to go a step beyond that.  Say how YOU would revise our trademark policy- give your opinion!

4 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement  Top two debated trademark procedures related to Asterisk  Viewed from the following perspectives  Open Source- Non-profit  Open Source- For profit  Closed Source- Commercial users (Digium channel partners/licensees) Discussion about the merits/problems with certain trademark procedures

5 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement  Now for some news on our upcoming trademark enforcement procedures and how YOUR feedback provided today may shape those procedures!

6 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement Stepping up policing of trademark issues  In the next few weeks following AstriCon, Digium will be stepping up enforcement efforts.  Letters will be sent or persons will be otherwise contacted if our initial assessment of the use leads us to believe there is a violation of our policy.  If you receive a letter or are otherwise contacted and believe you should not have been, please contact me at It’s possible we may have misunderstood your use of Asterisk and you should not have received the letter or been otherwise

7 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement Now, let’s get warmed up. Who uses the Asterisk mark the most?  Laptops down stand up

8 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement Sit down if…  You’ve never purchased an item (outside of AstriCon ® materials) with the ™ logo on it

9 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement Sit down if…  You (or the company you work for) doesn’t own or maintain a website on which Asterisk is mentioned somewhere.

10 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement Sit down if…  You or the company you work for has never used the logo on your website, in marketing materials, or in any other way during yours or your company’s use, sales, or development of Asterisk

11 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement Sit down if…  You don’t use, sell, or develop Asterisk.

12 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement Sit down if…  You have never written an article, blog, forum post, or other public writing in which Asterisk is mentioned

13 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement Sit down if…  You have never purchased the word Asterisk as an Adword or Keyword on Google™ or purchased the word Asterisk to otherwise influence any search engine rankings or results listings

14 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement Sit down if…  You or the company you work for has never registered a domain name with the word Asterisk in it

15 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement Still standing?  Congratulations- I will be calling on YOU!  Just kidding

16 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement Time to get to work- the dividing line of opinion…  Trademark policy serves to prevent confusion as to source of the source  Trademark policy hinders software development  Meeting in the middle- tell me how YOU would revise the top two debated policies!

17 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement Crossing the divide- round of participants to discuss policy changes  The top two debated trademark policies as they are now  And how they look shaped with your input!  Let’s see how many persons in each category we have- round up of participants

18 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement Before we begin…. What will be done with feedback  Proposed policy changes are solicited in order to reevaluate the current policy and to take back for further discussion- but implementation of proposed changes is not guaranteed. The policy which best fits the feedback received here today and also accomplishes the goal of preventing consumer confusion will be implemented.

19 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement Top two debated trademark policies with regard to Asterisk  Use of Asterisk in a domain name  Use of the Asterisk bubble logo

20 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement Use of the word Asterisk in a domain name  Use of the word Asterisk in a domain name. Generally not allowed- but exceptions are frequently granted based on the below factors.  Factors considered:  Similarity in the domain name itself to or any other Digium maintained websites. For example, would be problematic, but would be less problematic.  Content of page- whether the content duplicates a Digium maintained website.  Whether the purpose is for profit or not  Whether the domain name registrant is under a commercial contract with Digium or not.  Any country code Top Level Domain and legal residency requirements

21 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement Logo usage Usage Factors considered: Must be in the form in which it was originally distributed by Digium. Non-profit use always allowed so long as user is in compliance with the rest of our trademark policy For profit use only with commercial agreement with Digium

22 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement The reason for our trademark policies…  AstriConTrademarks Gone Wrong pptx AstriConTrademarks Gone Wrong pptx

23 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement Domain Policy Pros Cons OS/ Non-profit OS/for-profit Closed Source

24 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement Domain policy- your way!  How would YOU revise the domain policy?

25 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement Asterisk Bubble Logo Policy Pros Cons OS/Non-profit OS/for-profit Closed Source

26 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement Asterisk Bubble Logo policy- your way!  How would YOU revise the logo policy?

27 Creative Innovation – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Quality Improvement Wrap Up  Thank you for participating!  Questions or final comments?  Feel free to send any additional feedback regarding our trademark policy to