Sun may be gearing up for a legal dispute with JBoss, a “very much for profit” open-source company that, according to Sun, is misleading consumers by releasing software that departs from J2EE compliance standards. Full story is here.
The substantive technological issue in the debate is compatibility. Software non-compliance affects portability, and the point of using J2EE standards is to assure cross-system operability. The assurance of J2EE compliance grants consumers confidence that the technology they use will behave in the ways the software maker promises.
When the dispute is phrased strictly in terms of compatibility, however, the relevance of trademark law to the conflict can be easily overlooked. But Sun’s case against JBoss illustrates the essential purpose of trademark law – consumer protection.
Trademark law forbids companies to use trademarks in ways that confuse consumers. More specifically, trademark law protects against consumer confusion about the source of a product. So, companies can’t use trademarks in ways that suggest to consumers that the source of the product is a manufacturer other than the actual manufacturer (e.g., claiming that Adobe's Acrobat Reader is, say, a Microsoft product).
At least at first glance, Sun's dispute with JBoss doesn’t appear to follow this pattern. It doesn’t look like JBoss is trying to pass off as its own any of Sun’s products. It is not, in short, confusing consumers as to the source of its software—it is merely failing to live up to a set of Sun-defined standards.
But the argument is not just about standards. The inclusion of the term “J2EE” in JBoss’ specs signals to consumers – i.e., developers and companies –that JBoss’ software incorporates Sun’s technology. That technology is partly what it is because of its strict adherence to Sun-controlled standards. If the technology is not J2EE compliant, then it is not Sun’s technology, but a derivative of it, and it is, in fact, misleading to consumers for JBoss to attach the “J2EE” tag to its software.
Put in more concrete, analogous terms, if JBoss’ software is not actually J2EE compliant, then the company’s action is the equivalent of someone selling a heavily modified Mercedes Benz car with a Mercedes tag on it, one that not only doesn’t use Mercedes components but doesn’t provide the kind of power that a standard Mercedes engine would. If JBoss’ software is not actually J2EE compliant, the company is not delivering the piece of technology it has promised its consumers any more than I am delivering a Mercedes engine.
In short, if this goes to litigation and the court concedes that the use of the term J2EE indicates the source of a particular technology (i.e., Sun’s Java), then the case fits squarely within the standard boundaries of trademark law. And the good news is that, in this case, IP law will protect not only the economic interests of a trademark owner, but the technological interests of developers and the companies that utilize JBoss. In a word, consumers.