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Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!rutgers!bellcore!faline!ulysses!allegra!alice!ark
From: ark@alice.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Public Domain trademark
Message-ID: <7293@alice.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 21-Sep-87 08:48:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: alice.7293
Posted: Mon Sep 21 08:48:10 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 23-Sep-87 01:18:41 EDT
References: <874@tjalk.cs.vu.nl>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Liberty Corner NJ
Lines: 12
Keywords: legislature trademarking

In article <874@tjalk.cs.vu.nl>, dick@tjalk.UUCP writes:
> Not that it worries me, since it is far from my bedside, but what
> legal consequences could this have?  Can anyone trademark any standing
> expression and override its semantics?  Seems to me that even the
> American language is in need of legal advice!

A trademark lawyer I talked to once told me that one can
only register a trademark to refer to a product that actually
exists, and then it only refers to a product of that kind.
Thus, for example, he told me that there was no problem in my
naming a programming language `Snocone' even though `SNO-CONE'
is a trademark when it refers to frozen desserts.