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Path: utzoo!linus!genrad!decvax!cca!ima!johnl
From: johnl@ima.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: xxx is a trademark of yyy - (nf)
Message-ID: <351@ima.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 24-Jun-83 18:38:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: ima.351
Posted: Fri Jun 24 18:38:06 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 25-Jun-83 21:45:07 EDT
Lines: 22

#R:watmath:-542300:ima:20400010:000:916
ima!johnl    Jun 24 15:10:00 1983

The R in a circle means that a trademark is registered with the trademark
office, whereas TM means that you claim it as a trademark but haven't
registered it.

There is some arcane difference between the two that I don't understand.
Registration isn't necessary to defend a trademark, you just have to be
able to prove that you've tried to identify it as a trademark, which is
why on the back of each genuine Band-Aid brand bandaid it says "Band-Aid
is a trademark."

Then again, there's the recent Monopoly (the board game) case in which a
court held that what's important is that the public associate the trade
name with the manufacturer, and since few know who makes Monopoly games,
it's not a trademark.  Seems to me that under that logic, "computer" is a
trademark of IBM.  Maybe "telephone" is a trademark of AT&T.  Jeez.

John Levine, ima!johnl

PS:  Let's move this to net.misc, if there's further interest.