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From: drears@ardc.arpa (Dennis G Rears)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: Unix as a trademark
Message-ID: <2362@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 4-Apr-86 13:20:16 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-smok.2362
Posted: Fri Apr  4 13:20:16 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 9-Apr-86 06:38:13 EST
Sender: news@brl-smoke.ARPA
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Hopefully this will be the last message on Unix as a trademark.  It was not my
intention to start a conspiracy to deprive AT&T(tm) of their trademark.  I
just wanted to point out two things:

	1) A trademark can be lost if it slips in common usage (it identifies
a type of product instead of specific brand name

        2) From what I've seen, people are not identifiying UNIX(tm) as a
trademark.  Just look at the name of this maillist as an example.  If the last
unix-wizards digest is printed you will find that UNIX(tm), DEC(tm), and
AT&T(tm) are mentioned and not identified as being trademarked.  Also when
mentioning the word UNIX(tm) it should be capitalized and not "Unix".  I tend
not to mark trademarks as trademarks because to me it is not worth the
hassle.
     Does that mean we should? Legally I guess it does.  Are we committing a
tort against AT&T(tm), DEC(tm), IBM(tm),etc? Probably.  Will we continue to
non-identify the trademarked words.  I think so.  The only time I see
trademarks be identified as trademarks are in commercial dealings (advertising, 
etc).



Dennis

P.S.  I know this issue no longer belongs in unix-wizards but I had to 
clarified what I meant in a previous message.