From: Florian Hars <florian@hars.de> To: lwn@lwn.net Subject: Trademarks and guilt by association Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2001 16:32:14 +0200 According to german trademark law, guilt by association is more than enough. The arguments you mention -- he is not the copyright hoder, there is no single responsible individual -- are simply irrelevant in german trademark law. You are even liable if you are in the transport business and a customer gives you an infringing product that is packed in a totally neutral box to deliver to someone else. So managing a web site for an infringing product (where you know about the content of the site) is definitely sufficient. In fact, if the name KIllustrator should be considered as infringing on Adobe's trademark, then -- at lest according to some influential lawyers -- *anyone* putting a link to KIllustrator on a website, contributing code to it, distributing it on a free linux CD, ... can be held liable for infringing the trademark. Yours, Florian Hars.