*BSD News Article 2786


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From: brtmac@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu (Brett McCoy)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: Announcing 386BSD Release 0.1
Message-ID: <BRTMAC.92Jul29224116@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu>
Date: 30 Jul 92 03:41:16 GMT
References: <14cuvtINN568@agate.berkeley.edu> <1992Jul20.135540.12384@uvm.edu>
	<10916@platypus.uofs.uofs.edu>
Organization: Kansas State University
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In-reply-to: bill@prijat.cs.uofs.edu's message of 21 Jul 92 17:27:16 GMT

In article <10916@platypus.uofs.uofs.edu> bill@prijat.cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes:

>In article <1992Jul20.135540.12384@uvm.edu>, wollman@trantor.emba.uvm.edu (Garrett Wollman) writes:
>|> 
>|>   3.  As far as everybody who is not employed by AT&T and its
>|> licensees is concerned, BSD *is* UNIX, whether it actually contains
>|> AT&T code or not.
>|> 
>
>I believe that AT&T has started a lawsuit against BSDI that is going to
>put an end to this idea real quick.  If it don't say AT&T, it ain't UNIX.

I'm curious how this stands up against the common usage law.  When
does UNIX come up for trademark/copyright renewal?  It's my
understanding that when a word becomes common usage to describe a
general idea and not a specific product the rights of that trademark
are lost and anyone can use it to describe their product.  I'd say
that UNIX is pretty much a common usage term used to describe a way
of doing things more than a specific product from a specific vendor.

++Brett;