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Re: Trade and Service Marks

  • To: Multiple recipients of list <comcifs-l@iucr.org>
  • Subject: Re: Trade and Service Marks
  • From: Brian McMahon <bm@iucr.org>
  • Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2000 15:11:24 GMT
> This has come up in a previous discussion thread, but here goes ...
> 
> STAR File is a term (VERY) widely used in the travel industry, and
> probably pre-dates any notion of a STAR File ala SR Hall. You may have
> great difficulty registering or TM-ing this name.

The advantage of the trademark or service mark is that the protection it
offers is specific to "businesses in a similar area" (see my previously
posted background paper). So it may be possible in principle to TM
"STAR File" as a computer science term. If that is really what we want to
do: Syd's comments suggest that he does not consider that essential.
 
> A cursory search for the acronym DDL on web pages results in 81,000 hits.
> A query for DDL but not CIF gives 79,000 hits. Again the prospect of
> registration and trademarking may be difficult.

DDL may be more difficult because it is already used as an acronym in
database applications for "data definition language", so there is much more
of an overlap there.

Brian