Comment by klustregrif
8 hours ago
Ignorering the questionable legality of this entire thing, which might fall out in favor of it being a legal activity. Calling the project OpenViktor is as dumb as committing secrets to GitHub. For the love of reason call it something else.
Is the name Victor trademarkable?
Sure it is:
https://uspto.report/TM/78326416/
https://uspto.report/TM/74713937/
https://uspto.report/TM/74619284/
https://uspto.report/TM/87438245/
https://uspto.report/TM/77936273/
https://uspto.report/TM/86747705/
https://uspto.report/TM/78638776/
https://uspto.report/TM/73359604/
https://uspto.report/TM/98066821/
https://uspto.report/TM/97979922/
…and many more.
Is office?
There is no doubt that if this goes to court you are only hurting your own chances at any reasonable defense by deciding on mirroring the naming like that. And for what? Saying you created an opensource product with no tie to their branding would convey the same effect.
Yes, there's no way that somebody could have a product called OpenOffice that is literally an Open Source version of Office. Impossible.
The legal purpose of trademarks is to serve the same purpose as a signature: in order that one company cannot do business pretending to be another company without showing a clear intention to defraud - an intention made clear by the attempt to fake a signature, or imitate a mark. It is not to own words or sounds. It is a mark that you trade under.
This is a product that is openly hostile to the other product, and is adding a well-established prefix to indicate the reason for that hostility.