andrew@orca.UUCP (Andrew Klossner) (03/08/84)
"Sorry, that name's been taken. When IBM unleashed PL/1 on the
world, I believe they trademarked PL/2 through PL/99 to avoid
be upstaged."
Yes, but US trademark law specifically provides that if a company does
not use a trademark it reverts to the public domain. Since IBM has had
these trademarks for almost twenty years and hasn't released a product
under those marks, they no longer have a valid claim to them.
On the other hand, some authorities claim that a trademark consists
only of its letters; digits are insignificant. This is why an earlier
language was called SIMSCRIPT IV, rather than SIMSCRIPT 4, so as not to
collide with a different trademark, SIMSCRIPT. By this argument, any
name for a programming language whose letters are "PL" would be a
violation of the PL/1 trademark. [But then, some of IBM's compilers
have been called PL/I.]
Of course, all this is probably academic, as they have enough lawyers
to bankrupt a challenger in civil lawsuits.
-- Andrew Klossner (decvax!tektronix!orca!andrew) [UUCP]
(orca!andrew.tektronix@rand-relay) [ARPA]hal@cornell.UUCP (Hal Perkins) (03/15/84)
The way I heard it, when IBM introduced PL/1 (or do you say PL/I?), they
registered PL/2 through PL/99 using both arabic AND roman numerals (PL/II
to PL/XCIX). I don't know what the real story is, I'm afraid, and I
wouldn't have any idea if the registration is still valid.
Hal Perkins UUCP: {decvax|vax135|...}!cornell!hal
Cornell Computer Science ARPA: hal@cornell BITNET: hal@crnlcs