How does it affect user groups Re: [SGVLUG] Linux Trade mark ...

[Michael Proctor-Smith]

On 8/28/05, Dustin <laurence at alice.caltech.edu> wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Aug 2005, Martin Bähr wrote:
> 
> > On Sun, Aug 28, 2005 at 04:18:49AM -0700, David Lawyer wrote:
> > > I'm not even sure that "Linux" is a trademark anymore since it's also
> > > become a word in the English language.
> 
> > > It's legal for a name to escape from trademark status and I think that
> > > "Unix" may have escaped but it hasn't been tested in court.

A trademark must be for a proper noun. So Unix and Linux are difficult
to escape Trademark. That is why Xerox and Google discurage the poeple
from saying "google for it.", "xerox it.",
As verbs can not be Trademarked.

By the way Unix is still a Trademark and is owned by the Opengroup.
The Opengroup actively fight people calling anything that that has not
passed there(the opengroup) Unix campatability tests, Unix.