From: William Levak (wlevak_at_cyberspace.org)
Date: 2004-06-20 06:38:39
On Sat, 19 Jun 2004, Scott Julian wrote:
> I think that we all agree that they own the trademark 'Commodore, Commodore
> 64 hell maybe even own C64' and many others of much lesser value such as
> 'Vic-20 and PET'. But remember they can't own the number 64 as this by
> itself is not able to be a trademark 'look into why Intel changed the way
> numbered their CPUs, 286,386,486 and then a sudden they changed to Pentium
> and no clone makers can call their CPUs by that name'
>
> What I'm saying is just drop the 'C' and called it 64 Compatible.
You can call it C64 or Commodore 64 compatible. Just look any any piece
of software or hardware you own. Everyone uses the actual Tredamarked
names to say what it is compatible with. You just can't name your product
with those names.
> As for userports, expansion port and all the others such as joystick ports
> (clearly copied from Atari, and from memory Atari did take action and
> Commodore settled out of court). It would be impossible to take action
> against anyone producing products that plugged into these ports, as
> Commodore themselves published the port diagrams, timing information etc in
> the one book that just about every Commodore owner has 'Commodore 64
> Reference Guide'. Not to mention that for the pass 20 years this information
> has been reproduced in countless books and magazines. They have no legal
> president to enforce any action.
If that were true, no book copyright would be valid.
You can use the information all you want, you just can't reproduce it for
sale.
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