> From: lizard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> How about "Word" for your brand of word processor? :) The proper analogy would be "Word Processor" for a brand of word processors. (Or 'software', perhaps). I could certainly attempt to trademark car names such as "Fast", or "Gas Guzzler", or "Basic Transportation". (Volkswagon, anyone? "People's car"?) "Nova", for example, means "Doesn't run" ["No va" can be translated as "won't go"] in Spanish, and that didn't stop Nova from being trademarked. I supose it goes without saying that "Le Car" was a registered trademark too. Heck, the biggest manufacturer of cars in the world is called "General Motors". In some sense, every car on the roads is a "general motor". Micosoft has believed since the first days of the company that things should be named after what they do. (Microsoft itself is named thusly: it sells software for microcomputers). Word, Paint, MS-Mail, Internet Explorer, Windows, all follow that common thread of branding. "Excel" is the unique name, but that's because Excel was an acquired product that wasn't created inside Microsoft, and even at that, as a pun for "Excellent Cells", it still relates to what it does. They probably would have had "Microsoft Data" or "Microsoft Database" except that they wanted to make a strong distinction between Access and dBase. "Microsoft Access" should have been the name of their ISP. :) You'll note the similiarity in strategy to my own enterprise; instead of following the current strategy of making up a name like "Dynergy" or "Excebulon", we named the company after what it does. Ryan _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
