License information about a TM

[egekorkan]

When a TM (and as an extension its TD) is published by a manufacturer, it is not clear how the manufacturer can provide a license or similar information. Some questions:

• Giving information about how the TM or TD can be reused: Can another organization copy the TM when creating their product? Can they be inspired? Are TMs copyrighted by nature? This is relevant to licenses in software.
• Protecting the manufacturer: Can the manufacturer mention that the TM is provided as is and no responsibility is taken? This is important when the manufacturer gives the TM/TD but it is by its customers where the customer writes code on their own based on the TM/TD. For example, if the manufacturer gave the wrong data schema and the Thing is not doing input checking, the Consumer can send the wrong data automatically and break the Thing. Manufacturers may not want to be accountable in that case.