If you are still holding on to an old Fedora CD, T-shirt, logo-emblazoned mouse pad - or pretty much anything bearing the trademark - Red Hat would appreciate your assistance in asserting the Fedora community's legal rights.

"Old" for this purpose is pre-Jan. 30, 2007.

Paul Frields writes to the Fedora Project mailing list:

Red Hat Legal provides numerous services as counsel to the Fedora community, including defending Fedora trademarks against possible encroachment. Occasionally, people who have no connection to our community attempt to use the Fedora trademark to signify business efforts that have no connection to the Fedora Project, our distribution, or the Fedora community.

Red Hat Legal is currently working on just such a defense. They've asked me to pass on a request for assistance in gathering physical evidence of our use of the Fedora logo worldwide prior to January 30, 2007.

The list of particular items sought and where to send them can be found here.

Pam Chestek in Red Hat's legal department writes:

"The application we are opposing contains both the word 'Fedora' and the logo. So evidence our use of the word Fedora in any form, with or without the logo, before the January date is also valuable."

As for the identity of the alleged infringer, we don't know, although the very first request from the memo may (or may not) provide a clue as to the location of the person or persons:

"An item bearing the current Fedora logo that was produced or available in China prior to January 30, 2007 is optimal, but anything available worldwide would suffice."

Start rummaging.

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