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The Linux(R) scam - not the first abuse of trademarks in USA
The story of Linux(R) scam reminded me of an incident which happened to
an Israeli company for which I worked five years ago.
The company advertised and sold a family of products in USA.
Few years later, they developed a new line of products and started to
advertise them in USA. Then one of the trade magazines informed the
company that they got a letter from an American who claimed that the
company name infringes upon the name of his own company.
I don't know the details but the company could prove that it used its
name in advertisements in USA well before the American incorporated his
own company using the same name.
So it appears that there are some people in USA who try to hoard, as
trademarks, names of goods and companies from outside of USA, and then
try to make tidy living off the royalties.
Something is disturbing in the Linux(R) story: that it took so long time
to persecute the case even when the facts were so clearcut. And that the
Trademarks office in USA allowed the Linux(R) trademark to be registered
even though it should not have required much research to find that the
word is already in wide use.
--- Omer
Internet E-mail: xlacha1@wizard.weizmann.ac.il
omerz@actcom.co.il
WWW home page: http://www.weizmann.ac.il/~xlacha1/
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