[circuit10]

Can you really demand someone not have any references to your product? Surely people are allowed to refer to it to explain their fork's relation to the original, otherwise it would also be illegal to compare your product against competitors in advertising or to review anything

I guess it depends on whether it's likely to confuse people?

[kstrauser]

As we speak, the Mac version's website is peppered with statements like:

> Is Notepad++ available for Mac?

> Yes. Notepad++ is now natively available for macOS as a free download.

That's over the line. This isn't a few tweaks to get it to compile on a Mac, but a wholesale rewrites of big chunks of it. It's a fork of Notepad++, but it's not the Notepad++.

[circuit10]

I was replying to the hypothetical situation in the comment of saying "Awesome Notepad, a Notepad++ fork"

[kstrauser]

Gotcha.

[hnlmorg]

If it’s part of the branding, then yes.

Saying “Awesome Notepad, a Notepad++ fork” as the tagline for a product would then be using Notepad++’s trademark for Awesome Notepads branding.

If it’s just mentioned in the documents then it because a question for the courts to decide if that’s sufficient use in advertising material. And what will likely usually happen is an undisclosed settlement.

But a lot of this depends on how it’s used, how litigious the trademark holder is, and what jurisdiction this is happening in.

[hnlmorg]

This is where trademark law starts to get a little murky and the law will differ from country to country.

[Tepix]

Does it?

[hnlmorg]

Yes. For example: https://claimistry.com/trademark-law-differences-across-coun...