Newsgroups: comp.lang.dylan
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From: mhamburg@mv.us.adobe.com (Mark Hamburg)
Subject: Re: Alleging name theft, Bob Dylan sues Apple Computer
Message-ID: <mhamburg-130994151902@macb021.mv.us.adobe.com>
Followup-To: comp.lang.dylan
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References: <dasherCv44tp.Jzx@netcom.com> <33v81c$8c4@ucunix.san.uc.edu> <3400rt$dcu@nyx10.cs.du.edu> <34i6sv$id0@mrnews.mro.dec.com> <Cw0qqA.L9r@mv.mv.com>
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 1994 22:21:43 GMT
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In article <Cw0qqA.L9r@mv.mv.com>, drd@mv.mv.com (David R. Dick) wrote:

> Whatever happened to the fact that you're not supposed to
> be able to trademark the name of a language (in the US, at least)?
> (Microsoft won a case involving "QuickBasic" based on this.)
> 
> I think the fact that no one can call an implementation of the language
> "Dylan", unless Apple says so, quite unfair.
> 
> What if "C" had been trademarked by ATT? We'd all still be
> in their thrall.
> 
> David Dick
> Software Innovations, Inc.
> [the Software Moving Company; moving software to open systems for over a decade]

Language names are trademarkable.

PostScript, for example, is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems, Inc.. 
The standard is publicly available but any non-Adobe implementations cannot
be called "PostScript".

More likely the issue with C and BASIC is that the developers did not
bother to pursue trademarks early enough and hence lost ownership.  They
weren't looking to make money on the languages themselves, so the trademark
issue didn't really matter to them.

What I have gathered from Apple is that they are trademarking the name
Dylan but will let anyone use it who builds a conforming implementation.

Mark
