Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

RE: Don't you dare say "levitator!"



At 21:24 7/1/98 -0500, you wrote:
Hi all-
I think that Beatty's posting was what a lawyer (like me) would call
a cheap shot. The posting was:
*********************************************************
You have a new entry in your guestbook:
------------------------------------------------------
On your home page, as you scroll down and get to Some Maglev Links,
Under *NASA LARGE GAP levitator. Please note that the Term Levitator is
TRADEMARKED by Superconductive Components Inc....


The owner of the trademark has a legitimate concern that the trademarked
name might come into common usage and take on a generic meaning.
If that happens,
then the owner loses his trademark rights.
The classic examples are "aspirin" for
a certain chemical compound and "hoover" for vacuum cleaner.
So what the attorney
was telling you, perhaps as inarticulately as most 27 year olds
(I suppose) was:
DON'T STEAL!
Regards,
Jack


It is not normally thought to be intellectual theft when one uses a
word of the native language, or at the very least, a quite normal
extension of a root word 'levitate' which is to be found in the OED.

The American system, graced as it is with lawyers under every available
monolith, and a legislative system endowed with yet more recherche versions
of the same job-category is not notably smart in permitting the commercial
theft of our language birthright - but when the copyright whims of
commercial companies may easily be gratified by simply throwing down
the means of acquiring a Beemer before a person with a law degree, then
one should not be surprised by such a travesty as "Legal Theft", nor yet
by a lawyer's sturdy defense of same, I suppose.

Brian Whatcott Altus OK