tanner@ki4pv.uucp (Dr. T. Andrews) (06/03/89)
At one time, the term "touchtone" (wiht possible capitalization) was
protected as a trademark by The Phone Co. Has TPC given up the
rights to the name? I have close at hand an advert from a candy
seller offering cheap "touchtone" phones marked with the name of the
candy.
There is no trademark ACK in the fine print, either. If the term is
no longer protected, then I should be interested to know. No one
knows what I mean when I say "DTMF".
Repies via e-mail; I'll post a summary unless there is a moderator
note with this message indicating that I shall e-mail results to
interested parties. Thanks.
Dr. T. Andrews, Systems
CompuData, Inc. DeLand
--
...!bikini.cis.ufl.edu!ki4pv!tanner ...!bpa!cdin-1!cdis-1!ki4pv!tanner
or... {allegra killer gatech!uflorida decvax!ucf-cs}!ki4pv!tannerrdsnyder%mit-amt.media.mit.edu@eecs.nwu.edu (Ross D. Snyder) (06/11/89)
My understanding is that AT&T registered "touchtone" as a trademark when they invented DTMF, but surrendered it at divestiture (midnight 01 Jan 84). Most of the Bell System intellectual property rights were divided up between AT&T, the RBOCs, and Bellcore, but "touchtone" was instead released to the public domain. The reason was that AT&T wanted to keep "touchtone" to describe the DTMF capablities of its common carrier operations, CO switches, computers, and CPE, while RBOCs wanted to be able to sell "touchtone"-compatible dial-tone. Because of this decision, anyone can now sell "touchtone" products or services. Someone said BT claims "touchtone" as trademark in the UK, which is probably OK under international intellectual property law. The story is different for the Bell System symbol. (There's a good article in a 1971 issue of Telephony magazine on the design of the Bell System symbol and the color scheme of Bell System vehicles.) The Bell System symbol was given to the RBOCs and Bellcore. AT&T had to come up with its new non-concentric circle-within-a-circle-all-made-of-horizontal-lines symbol. Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer (yet). Correct me if I'm wrong. -Ross
cowan@marob.masa.com (John Cowan) (06/14/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0194m04@vector.dallas.tx.us> mit-amt!rdsnyder%mit-amt. media.mit.edu@eecs.nwu.edu (Ross D. Snyder) writes: >The story is different for the Bell System symbol. (There's a good article >in a 1971 issue of Telephony magazine on the design of the Bell System >symbol and the color scheme of Bell System vehicles.) The Bell System >symbol was given to the RBOCs and Bellcore. AT&T had to come up with its >new non-concentric circle-within-a-circle-all-made-of-horizontal-lines >symbol. The current AT&T logo was originally the ABI (American Bell, Inc.) logo. ABI was the "non-regulated subsidiary" that the old AT&T set up to market computers and such things around 1982. After divestiture, AT&T as a whole adopted this new logo. American Bell as such no longer exists, although there are still AT&T machines whose uucp-name is ab*, like abflx, that were once ABI machines. Media watchers may remember ABI as "Baby Bell". -- John Cowan <cowan@marob.masa.com> or <cowan@magpie.masa.com> UUCP mailers: ...!uunet!hombre!{marob,magpie}!cowan Fidonet (last resort): 1:107/711 Aiya elenion ancalima!