Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!nih-csl!lhc!ncifcrf!haven!purdue!news.cs.indiana.edu!cica!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!samsung!rex!lang
From: lang@rex.cs.tulane.edu (Raymond Lang)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: APPLE 800 LINE (Macintosh TM)
Message-ID: <4861@rex.cs.tulane.edu>
Date: 7 Nov 90 13:48:01 GMT
References: <5460@crash.cts.com> <8551@darkstar.ucsc.edu> <84@braille.uwo.ca>
Organization: C.S. Dept, Tulane Univ., New Orleans, LA
Lines: 25

In <84@braille.uwo.ca> bill@braille.uwo.ca (Bill Carss) writes:
>There wasz an article in Open apple (A@ Dentral) a few years ago about this
>very thing.  At that time, they said that every "real" word in the english
>language was owned by someone.  Companies are now putting together nonsense

That was a joke, as he explained in a subsequent issue for
the benefit of those who didn't pick up on the sarcasm.


[other stuff]
>maybe you can *OWN* a name for considerably longer than a regular patent.

There's some confusion here. Patents, copyrights, and trademarks are three
different things that serve three different purposes. Inventions are
granted patents, creative works are copyrighted, and brand names get
trademarked. I'm not a lawyer, so I can't really presume to explain
the differences fully; but my understanding is that patents expire
after 25 years, and that copyrights and trademarks may be renewed
indefinitely (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

>Bill Carss
>bill@braille.uwo.ca       (Please Note the Lower case!!)

Ray
lang@rex.cs.tulane.edu