Re: [humorix] New Linux Companies Hope To Get Rich Quick

[Pope Aaron the twenty-third-and-a-quarter <mamiller@olemiss.edu>]

Bernhard Rosenkraenzer wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 27 Jan 2000, James Baughn wrote:
> 
> > ...Yes, that's right, there's actually somebody in Sweden with a first
> > name of "Humorix"!
> 
> Our friend C. A. Pitalist <capitalist@microsoft.eu.org> just gave me a
> call - he recommends you sue the authority that issued his passport over this
> patent infringement and illegal abuse of intellectual property.
> 
> Oh, by the way, he's also letting you know that DirectX and ActiveX have
> set a precedent meaning all words ending with an x are automatically
> Microsoft's intellectual property. He demands you turn over humorix
> immediately. ;)

After reading this, I immediately went and talked to my own lawyer
friend, Mike Ercenary <mercenary@sue-this-you-trick.com>, and this is
(more or less)[1] what he told me:

'ActiveX' and 'DirectX' aren't *words* per se. They aren't in the OED,
after all, which is, inasmuch as anything is, the official repository of
the English language. They're trademarked product names, which don't
actually count as words. Which means, of course, that Microsoft doesn't
have a leg to stand on, but then we all knew that already, didn't we?

-------------------------------------------------------------------
  Pope Aaron the 23rd-and-a-quarter: Keeper of the Mystic Melons,
polybrat, and Official Cute Little Frilly-Dressed Eighteen-Year-Old
 of alt.discordia; beloved (and style consultant) of the Evil Sexy
   Daughters of Eris Cabal - mamiller@olemiss.edu - Hail Eris!

[1] I say 'more or less' because we, in true and time-tested
Linux-longhair fashion, were both stoned out of our gourds when the
conversation took place.
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