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Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip,misc.legal
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Machine names and trademark law
Message-ID: <1991Apr15.171115.23689@zoo.toronto.edu>
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1991 17:11:15 GMT
References: <1991Apr14.183245.345@cs.columbia.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1991Apr14.183245.345@cs.columbia.edu> ji@cs.columbia.edu (John Ioannidis) writes:
>Suppose I name a machine "foo.cs.columbia.edu", where "foo" is a
>trademark or a registered trademark, e.g., the name of a video game, a
>brand of consumer electronics, the make of an exotic car, or the name
>of a computer manufacturer. Have I violated trademark law? 

Caution:  I am not a lawyer.  Consult a pro before doing anything rash. :-)

The idea behind trademark law is that a trademark denotes a particular
vendor's product, so that it will not be confused with competing products.
The theory is that you infringe on someone's trademark only when you use
it in a way that could cause such confusion.  The practice is that different
companies have very different ideas about what constitutes potential for
confusion, and being sued is painful and costly even if it fails.

In practice, the odds are that nobody would care.  The odds are good that
if anyone did care, they'd send you a nasty letter saying "change those
names or we'll sic our lawyers on you".  This still wouldn't be fun, mind
you.  Me, I'd be wary of using names that have anything to do with
electronics, but the exotic cars sound reasonably safe.
-- 
And the bean-counter replied,           | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"beans are more important".             |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry