ownership of metadata

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A recent legal ruling in Germany implicitly puts the question of ownership 
of metadata in the limelight: in a recent high court ruling it was decided 
that trademarks used as either a name or value anywhere in html metadata 
fall under the protection of the copyright and/or trademark laws.

In principle this follows current jurisprudence in protecting domain 
names, but the problem is that ownership is implicitly being claimed and 
supported for a definition, i.e. a lexical term its ontological basis. 
This raises all sorts of problems.

Are there any similar cases in other countries?

Mark Mattingley-Scott

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<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">A recent legal ruling in Germany implicitly
puts the question of ownership of metadata in the limelight: in a recent
high court ruling it was decided that trademarks used as either a name
or value anywhere in html metadata fall under the protection of the copyright
and/or trademark laws.</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">In principle this follows current jurisprudence
in protecting domain names, but the problem is that ownership is implicitly
being claimed and supported for a definition, i.e. a lexical term its ontological
basis. This raises all sorts of problems.</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Are there any similar cases in other
countries?</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Mark Mattingley-Scott<br>
</font>
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