The Montreal Gazette reports that Stationnement de Montréal, a subsidiary of the Montreal Board of Trade, has demanded the removal of an iPhone application that pinpoints where Bixi bikes, public-use bikes, are available in the city. The Board cites trademark rights in the name Bixi.
Montreal Board of Trade Demands Removal of iPhone App
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Asking for code
Given the quote by Philibert in the article, it’s unclear whether Stationnement de Montréal really understands the difference between trademark and copyright. Most egregious is they somehow feel entitled to the source code of the application.
This however gave me an idea: if they’ll copy a supposedly infringing app, we could give them more options. For developers and designers with UI ideas, I have an MIT licensed project that generates a basic map and KML feed of stations. Feel free to fork and modify the following:
http://github.com/danielharan/biximo/tree/master
What copyright?
Stationnement de Montréal has no idea what it is talking about. They cannot have copyright for this name, only trademark. Daniel is right, if in fact the journalist got it right. This is not a copyright issue, but rather a trademark issue and possibly not even than, depending on what this application says and does.
What No Free Publicity Wanted?
Doesn’t this help promote the new project?
Can “Bixi” be legally used?
Assuming they make it clear it’s an unofficial site and Bixi is not their trademark, is an app developer in the clear?
Assuming that the quote was correct, look at Philibert’s position… he is the director of communications and marketing. Entirely possible that he may have inadvertantly interchanged trademark and copyright.
As far as the source code… may be a case of “we’ll ask for the code and see if we get it”. After all, if they do, they can release, or even sell, it on their own.