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Message: <blockquote data-quote="lonewolfdevel" data-source="post: 5079160" data-attributes="member: 87800">Once more unto the breech....I had a very productive conversation with our IP attorney today and got clear on some important items. I'm not a lawyer, and I don't even pretend to play one on TV. So I messed up some terminology in what was intended as an informal message to Privateer.I will now publicly eat my crow for the following errors:First, use of the term "dilute" was incorrect in the context of genericization of our trademark. I should have worded that sentence differently. That was an error of not properly understanding the context in which certain terms apply, which I hopefully now do.Second, invoking the DMCA directly was technically incorrect, as I should have referenced it by analogy. That being said, there has been recent case law that has applied the principles of the DMCA to trademark infringement. The judge in the case where Tiffany sued eBay said that eBay would have certain obligations once directly notified by the trademark holder, "similar to the way the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA works". In hearing about this from our attorney awhile back, I misinterpreted his comments, so I believed he had indicated we could now directly reference the DMCA.Finally, and most importantly, the paragraph that insists all "improper references" to our trademark be edited or removed from our forums was not clearly worded. I should have used the term "infringing references" instead, since that was the intent. I had identified two issues in the message - direct infringement and generic use. I then outlined two actions, with the belief that clearly action #1 applied to issue #1 and action #2 applied to issue #2.Since I used the term "improper", though, the paragraph could also be construed as encompassing all generic references to the trademark. This explains why people took exception to it. Unfortunately, that possible interpretation completely escaped me, and you can witness as much in my earlier posts where I asserted my interpretation of the paragraph - and its intent. So this was a very subtle, yet critical, error on my part, and anything but intentional.From what I understand, it's that last item that has incited the uproar. I genuinely am sorry for the confusion on this, and I would have acknowledged this error immediately if I had recognized it. It was definitely a "Doh!" moment when it was made clear to me.So, apologies to all for the confusion and indignation this has caused. Please believe that it was an honest mistake.</blockquote>

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