home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Cream of the Crop 21
/
Cream of the Crop 21 (Terry Blount) (October 1996).iso
/
educate
/
scrabl39.zip
/
LAWSUIT.XER
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1996-07-21
|
2KB
|
38 lines
INVITATION TO A LAW SUIT???
▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄
The new release of the OSPD3 (tm) now includes the word "xerox" and its
permutations. Unfortunately, the Xerox Corporation has trademarked the word
Xerox (tm), and does its best to discourage use of it in lower case and / or
missing the trademark designation. Whether the NSA (National Scrabble
Association) is inviting a law suit from Xerox will be an interesting topic
of discussion, no doubt.
Many decades back, the Bayer Company lost its rights to the word aspirin when
it became accepted as a generic descriptor. Xerox fears the same may happen
to the word describing its duplicating technology.
The entire issue of trademarking names is one that should be opened to
discussion, in my own extremely humble opinion. I personally think it absurd
that anyone could "own" the rights to a word. Language does not recognize
property rights, it belongs to everyone. Corporations make profits from
product names, but how far should the law go in protecting their rights?
Milton Bradley has trademarked the names Scrabble (tm) and the OSPD (tm). It
would be classic justice if Milton Bradley were sued by Xerox for trademark
violation. Imagine Milton Bradley scrabbling for the legal right to put
xerox in the OSPD (tm), yet threatening to sue anyone xeroxing that selfsame
OSPD (tm).
Further non-trivial comments on this topic are solicited.
▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄
Scrabble and OSPD are trademarks of the Milton Bradley Co., Inc.
Xerox is a trademark of the Xerox Corp.
M\Cooper
------------------------------------------------
E-mail: thegrendel@theriver.com
Web: http://personal.riverusers.com/~thegrendel/