From owner-freebsd-questions Mon Oct 8 22:29:38 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [206.29.169.15]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 97F8937B406 for ; Mon, 8 Oct 2001 22:29:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tedm.placo.com (nat-rtr.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [206.29.168.154]) by mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (8.11.1/8.11.1) with SMTP id f995TVT93589; Mon, 8 Oct 2001 22:29:32 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" To: "Gunnar H Reichert-Weygold" , Subject: RE: Use of the UNIX Trademark Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 22:29:30 -0700 Message-ID: <000501c15083$5f1787c0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 In-Reply-To: <01100820163507.00577@gunnar.weygold.edu> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3155.0 Importance: Normal Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG >-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Gunnar H >Reichert-Weygold >Sent: Monday, October 08, 2001 8:17 PM >To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: Re: Use of the UNIX Trademark > > >According to "The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing: (www.dict.org) > >(BSD) A family of Unix versions for the > DEC VAX and PDP-11, developed by Bill Joy and others > at the University of California at Berkeley. BSD Unix > incorporates paged virtual memory, TCP/IP networking > enhancements, and many other features. > > BSD UNIX 4.0 was released on 19 October 1980. The BSD > versions (4.1, 4.2, and 4.3) and the commercial versions > derived from them ({SunOS, ULTRIX, Mt. Xinu, Dynix) > held the technical lead in the Unix world until AT&T's > successful standardisation efforts after about 1986, and are > still widely popular. > > See also Berzerkeley, USG Unix. > > > >It looks like there's going to have to be a LOT of correcting going on... > >Seriously, though, the above paragraphs would imply prior art, wouldn't they? > In one of the books or interviews that Dennis Ritchie gave regarding the origination of the name UNIX he made the point that the engineers told the lawyers at AT&T that the name was UNICS (a pun on MULTICS) and it was mis-heard by them as UNIX. They apparently were so hot to get the name trademarked that they rushed the application through without ever going back to the engineers. When Dennis and company heard about the mistake they thought it so amusing that they adopted the revised name. Of course this may be an urban legend, but if it is true then your not going to find any prior art. Misuses of the name, sure, but it takes a tremendous amount of neglect of a company trademark before the company loses it. AT&T certainly has a history of use of the name UNIX in various marketing materials so I doubt that simply citing a bunch of misuses of the name would be sufficient grounds to disqualify the trademark. Certainly The Lawsuit filed btween AT&T and UCB displayed an attempt by AT&T to defend use of UNIX because as I understand it, BSDI was drawn into the battle due to a marketing campaign where they used 1-800-ITS-UNIX on a phone number. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message