Subject: Re: Enron Online Game
From: [email-masked]
To: [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2000 12:20:00 -0700 (PDT)

Agreed.

	Dave Samuels
	09/07/2000 08:07 AM
		 
		 To: Justin Boyd/LON/ECT@ECT, Mark Taylor/HOU/ECT@ECT
		 cc: Victor Browner/HOU/ECT@ECT, Rahil Jafry/HOU/ECT@ECT
		 Subject: Enron Online Game

I am not concerned about the issues below because a) is no longer a feature 
of the game and b) we are only showing a small portion of the flags, and this 
seems to be fairly academic.

Please let me know if you feel these are issues that need to be addressed.

thanks
Dave

---------------------- Forwarded by Dave Samuels/HOU/ECT on 09/07/2000 08:05 
AM ---------------------------

"Murton, Rachel" <[email-masked]> on 09/07/2000 03:57:51 AM
To: "[email-masked]'" <[email-masked]>, 
"[email-masked]'" <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]'" 
<[email-masked]>
cc:  
Subject: Enron Online Game

Dear All

Two issues/questions have been brought to my attention.  These relate to the
demo of the game I was sent a while back (i.e. a "Five Flags Down Under"
demo) and may therefore have been superceded (or the impact lessened) by
events.

a)  Under the "edit groups" section in the demo contetstants are told  "want
to have your own private Unamed Contest for friends, colleagues or
co-workers?  you can! it is simply a matter of choosing a group name,
entering a group password and telling your fellow contestants to go to this
page to join etc"

I assume that since fellow group members need to register, the "friends,
colleagues and co-workers" are all actually employees of Enron customers
anyway i.e. they can register in their own right if they want to?  Is this
the case?  If it is the case, perhaps it should be made a bit clearer that
an employee of an Enron customer can't  include friends who don't work for
Enron customers in their group.

b) Our Intellectual Property department have  "flagged" (excuse the pun!)
the issue of using national flags in a commercial setting.  Use of the UK
flag wouldn't seem to create problems - there is no copyright in the flag
because it is over 200 years old and it is widely used on, for example,
T-shirts as decoration.  However, they believe that there might be issues
associated with using the US flag -  this flag doesn't, for example,
routinely appear as a decoration on T-shirts etc.

Is this something that has already been thought of and dismissed in the US?

We believe that, in practice, national governments might not take action to
prevent the use of their flags in/on commercial products, as long as the use
is in good taste.  In addition, we believe that copyright provisions in
flags are normally only enforceable within those particular countries.
Flags are usually restricted under international copyright law from being
registered as trade marks, but consent can be obtained to waive these
restrictions, so there is a possibility that particular national flags could
be registered trade marks.

Given the particular circumstances of the game i.e. the flags are being used
in "good taste", for a limited audience, for a limited time,  and Enron is
presumably not seeking to obtain an unfair advantage from using the
reputation of the flags, problems do not seem particularly likely.   My
sense is tha,t if the use of flags is thought a "non-issue" in the US, then
it is probably even more of a "non-issue"/less of an issue  in Europe, but
if you would like me to take this further/check with the various EU
jurisdictions, please let me know?

Thanks

Rachel

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