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



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. Thank you. Bryan
Jeffries <bjeffries@SuperconductiveComp.com> Columbus , Oh USA -
Tuesday, June 30, 1998 at 23:06:12 (PDT)
------------------------------------------------------

Quite a reprehensible action of an out-of-control legal department,
wouldn't you say?

If you dare to tell your students that your superconductive demonstration
is a "levitator", watch out, they might come after you! Next I suppose
that Microsoft will warn us against using their trademarked term
"software", and Nike will try to make you put (tm) after all uses of the
word "swoosh."
***********************************
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


"I scored the next great triumph for science myself,
to wit, how the milk gets into the cow. Both of us
had marveled over that mystery a long time. We had
followed the cows around for years - that is, in the
daytime - but had never caught them drinking fluid of
that color."
Mark Twain, Extract from Eve's
Autobiography