Opening up: Mozilla talks trademarks

01-10-2010

Mozilla maintains its brand in an open-source environment. WIPR talks to Harvey Anderson, Mozilla’s general counsel, to find out how trademarks like Firefox can be part of a trusting relationship.

In January 1998, Netscape Communications, an early developer of software for the Internet, released the source code of its web browser under a public licence.

It was hoped that a collaborative development project could enhance Netscape’s next browser beyond the capabilities of its rivals. By creating a community that could contribute to and aid in the development of its next browser, Netscape would overcome restrictive resource issues. Netscape called this the Mozilla project.

The browser war of the 1990s involved software developers Microsoft and Netscape leading the race for a dominant share of the web browser market. They continuously offered feature-rich updates to their browsers. Microsoft, the eventual victor, had the advantage of being able to distribute Internet Explorer with the Windows operating system.


Mozilla, trademarks, Firefox, open-source, internet, browser

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