Obelix versus MobiliX: Legal Response Online Now

Werner Heuser
writes:

In the conflict between Obelix and MobiliX, the legal response
of the lawyers Jaschinski Biere Brexl (JBB) is online now.

In November 2001 Werner Heuser, owner of the Opens Source
project MobiliX – UniX on Mobile
Computers was charged by “Lés Editions Albert
René”, which is owner of the trademark “Obelix”. The charge
aimes on a deletion of the trademark “MobiliX” and a compensation
fee. Also every commercial use of the name “MobiliX” will be
forbidden. Every offense can be charged with up to 250.000 Euro or
as a substitute with six months prison. Werner Heuser has taken the
lawyers Jaschinski Biere Brexl
(JBB) to represent him in court. His lawyers had to work out
the legal response until January 21st 2002.

The legal response (PDF, 22 pages in German) is online now. The
document describes the origin of the names Obelix (from “obelisk”)
and MobiliX (from “mobil” and “UniX”). Many well known names are
used to show how widespread the suffix “ix” is in the IT business,
e.g. often UniX derivates are named by this scheme. This is
followed by an analysis of the pronounciation and spelling of the
words Obelix and MobiliX, and whether they can be mistaken from
members of the IT business or not. As a conclusion the charge is
considered void.

Since the suffix “ix” is widespread in the IT community, it
seems possible that even more projects will be charged. This case
is very important for the Free Software community, too. Therefore
the lawyers Jaschinski Biere Brexl (JBB) have agreed to make the
legal response public.

The MobiliX site is dedicated
to Mobile UniX systems. It leads you to a lot of useful hands-on
information about installing and running Linux, BSD and other
UniXes on laptops, PDAs and other mobile computer devices. Werner
Heuser offers his Linux-HOWTOs and his book “Linux on the Road”
there. Besides his work for MobiliX he is a Debian GNU/Linux
maintainer.