Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!killer!bigtex!james
From: james@bigtex.uucp (James Van Artsdalen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Phil Katz (PKARC author) sued by SEA
Message-ID: <2988@bigtex.uucp>
Date: 25 Jun 88 21:03:09 GMT
References: <5912@megaron.arizona.edu> <4499@killer.UUCP>
Reply-To: james@bigtex.UUCP (James Van Artsdalen)
Organization: F.B.N. Software, Austin TX
Lines: 36

IN article <4499@killer.UUCP>, richardh@killer.UUCP (Richard Hargrove) wrote:
> [ look & feel issues ]
> Since then a number of companies have been zinged on that one, the most
> well known one being what Apple did to Digital Research over GEM.

Apple never won a judgment against Digital.  They apparently never
even filed.  They merely threatened a war of attrition that Digital
would lose.

> As for
> number 2, this one is even more open to judgment. What right does SEA 
> have to the name ARC? What constitutes a major enough variation to keep
> from being an infringement? I noticed that Wendin changed the name of
> PC-UNIX to PCNX;

"unix" is a strong trademark.  Not only has it been around a long time
(I forget the legal name for it, but after a few years a trademark
gains strength from the passage of time), but it's not something you
would dream up to name an operating system every day.

"ARC", if trademarked, is a very weak trademark.  It hasn't been
around long enough, but more importantly, you *would* think up the
word "arc" to use for a program that does archiving.  In fact I assume
that other programs or systems have used those three letters as a
program name or file extension/type.  SEA won't keep "ARC" as a
trademark.

BTW: The 5th circuit appellate court ruled on Vault vs. Quaid last
Tuesday.  I have the decision and it's pretty interesting.  Quaid won
a complete victory, and the shrink-wrap prohibitions against
disassembly were explicitly ruled unenforcable.  Ruling also lets you
modify programs at will to any extent useful, and voids contract
clauses preventing that.
-- 
James R. Van Artsdalen   ...!ut-sally!utastro!bigtex!james   "Live Free or Die"
Home: 512-346-2444 Work: 328-0282; 110 Wild Basin Rd. Ste #230, Austin TX 78746