On Mon, Jul 19, 2004 at 12:15:31PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> "General Electric" is two words; MS has lost that game before now too
> ("IBM Works" does not infringe "Microsoft Works"). Apple's probably
> lawyer-bait.The important issue with trademarks is whether or not the word or phrase has some generic use in context in question. "Apple" in common use tends to refer to agriculture or eating, or stuff like that, where in the context of computers there's no question that it refers to a brand. The other words you list: General, Electric, and Works are only brand specific in our fields when used in phrases On the other hand, for example, if APL was a bit more popular (instead of a being dying language -- in part because ascii doesn't have the characters it requires and unicode doesn't include any standard way for a user to enter those characters), Apple might eventually have have to give a little ground. -- Raul
