Re: Equitable Mathematics

[Toby Bartels <toby+categories@math.ucr.edu>]

Colin McLarty wrote:

>Michael Barr wrote:

>>You would have to ask a lawyer about this, but
>>in general book titles cannot be copyrighted and I would assume the
>>same is true of journals.

>You cannot copyright a title but you can protect a well known title from
>infringement.

Specifically, you use ~trademark~ law, rather than ~copyright~ law,
to do this.  So a practical question in the case of the name "Topology"
is whether Elsevier claims it as their trademark as a journal title.
(They don't have to mark it on the cover to do this, although it helps;
trademarks often aren't legally identified until the litigation begins.)
Note that such a meaningful and relevant (not arbitrary and fanciful) name
is harder to trademark at all, but history and recognition help.


--Toby