Trademark
As of August 2018, “passcod” is a trademark I own personally. An official, registered, paid for and in the books, proper trademark.
This was done for several reasons, three really:
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Because I wanted to see if it was possible, and it was cheap enough, and didn’t require much effort at all, so might as well try it.
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Because very early in the year, someone approached me about the name, and I couldn’t really tell if it was a scam or not, so I took it at face value just in case, did a lot of reading, asked a lawyer, and told them politely what was mine and what they could do with the rest.
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Because “passcod” is my name, and that means something. But while there are protections around my legal name simply by virtue of being mine, there is no such thing around this name of mine. I wanted to permanently tie the name to myself (where “permanently” is “10 years, renewable”), and have it recognised as such by the law and the land.
I thought of making a little guidebook document thing that outlines what you can do with this trademark without explicitely asking me, but all the rules are kinda fuzzy because of it being a person-name and not a thing-name. So the deal goes like this:
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“passcod” is me. When you use the name, you’re referring to me. In consequent, you can use the name to refer to me. But:
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If you do something I don’t like with the name, I have the right to tell you off. If you persist, I have the right, and indeed the obligation to tell you off in stronger, legal, cease-and-desist type terms.
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No contract or license or legal document gives you any further right to the name unless I give you authorisation (in writing) to do so. If I do for anyone, this line will be amended.
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This list may be appended to or modified at any time without notice.
This is not meant to be a change that has effects on what you do, unless you were planning to be a dick about it. It’s about making it very clear that something is my name.