Trademark license agreement status

[Scott Glaser]

On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:07:20 -0400
Pamela Chestek <pchestek at redhat.com> wrote:

SNIP
> 
> > 2. Why is there no verbiage in the TLA that the the registrant of
> > the domain name would be reimbursed for their remaining expenses
> > (domain registration/transfer fees) if the domain is registered for
> > X amount of time and that time exceeds the life of the license?
> > I think this would foster a better relationship with the community
> > by doing so, as the expenses would be trivial to the Licensor
> > should a domain need to be turned over.
> >
> If the termination is because the licensee has materially breached
> the agreement, it doesn't seem appropriate for Fedora to pay a
> breaching party for the domain name. Any payment would also be out of
> Fedora's budget, so it's their judgment on under what circumstances
> and what amount would be appropriate. But I agree that it's probably
> a trivial amount, so it shouldn't be a hurdle either way.

Pamela based on your statement above and Paul's follow up below:

> As I told a couple people in other conversations, we didn't have a
> clause in the agreement with hard requirements, because it seemed kind
> of complicated to put in language that would allow us to reimburse in
> one situation, and allow us to not reimburse in others.
> 
> But the way I see it, if for some reason Red Hat terminated an
> agreement for some reason other than breach, Fedora should reimburse a
> domain owner for the balance of, say, a year's registration, up to
> some maximum amount.  I don't know what that amount should be off the
> top of my head, but most vendors offer registrations for < USD $25 a
> year.

Is there not a way to put in a statement that "At the Licensors
discretion some registration fees my be reimbursed based on terminating
the contract under favorable terms."  Some examples of this may be that
the Licensee may no longer wish to maintain the site and wish to
transfer the domain to Redhat/Fedora as part of the contract
termination and they may have some time remaining on the registration.

I did not mean this to be for cases where the contract has been
breached.  Only in cases where the terms of the contract were met. 

I also agree with what Paul stated that there should also be a
reasonable limit to amount that could be reimbursed, so as to prevent
people from throwing up a domain just to in a couple of weeks attempt
to transfer the domain in the hopes of making money. I also believe
the FAB should determine what is fair and reasonable.  This allows them
to determine what the limit should be and/or as needed
change the limit that the Fedora Project is willing to reimburse.

I have also read the changes that have been made thus far on the wiki
and believe that these changes greatly improve the document, however, I
would like to see more input from others on the list that will be
impacted by this document.  People, this document affects us all not
just Fedora Unity.  This is the chance to get it right and then move on
to doing what we do best, Spreading the word about Fedora!!


V/R

Scott Glaser