Re: G.U.E. Technical Institute


31 Mar 95 09:27:21 GMT

neild@echonyc.com (Neil Demause) writes:

>Short of calling Activision, isn't there a copyright office of some kind
>that you can call and ask the status of copyrighted phrases? I seem to
>remember this, but I may have been dreaming.

You can't copyright a name. Copyright is for artistic works (though
that's pushing it a bit with some commercial enterprises, I know!) and
a word or two isn't considered to fit into this category.

You can trademark a name, however. This means that you own the use of
that word or context in a given jurisdiction. (ie: country) Unlike
copyright, which doesn't have to be defended, trademarks have to be
legally defended or else they lapse. That's why a certain US firm owns
the right to a commonly-used word to describe a round throwing disc
toy, and sends squadrons of lawyers around to anybody who uses it.

The R in the circle indicates a trademark that has been registered
with the government, in the US at least. In Canada the R in the circle
holds no legal meaning, but the little TM does. However you don't need
to register a trademark in Canada to use the little TM symbol.

Anyway... what was the point of all this crap? Oh, right. G.U.E.
Tech. Well, I really doubt Infocom trademarked the term while they
were a company. They trademarked Infocom, obviously, and the names of
their games - Lurking Horror and whatnot. But I'd be really surprised
if they trademarked the name to a minor fictitious entity in one of
their games. And I even more strongly doubt that Activision
trademarked the name after buying out Infocom.

The upshot? Well, you could use it all you want and hope Activision
don't hassle you. Which is unlikely, really - why would they bother?
It's not like Mickey Mouse or Darth Vader or Coca-Cola or some other
highly valuable piece of intellectual property. (using "intellectual"
rather loosely for those examples!) Only way to find out is to do a
trademark search.

- Neil K.

(usual disclaimer - this is not legal advice, I'm not a lawyer, this
is hearsay from me talking to a patent expert but there are no
guarantees that any of this is true)

-- 
  49N 16' 123W 7'  /  Vancouver, BC, Canada  /  n_k_guy@sfu.ca