ron@ron.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) (12/07/88)
I heard a rumor that ATT has abandonned the trademark on "TouchTone." Can anyone confirm this?
map@gaak.LCS.MIT.EDU (Michael A. Patton) (12/08/88)
I used to work for a company that made products that used touch-tone input for access to computer data bases and such. At one point we were told by the lawyers that the "Touch-Tone is a registered trademark of AT&T" should be removed from the manuals because AT&T no longer owned it. The rumor I heard was basically that the Baby Bells and Mother AT&T both tried to claim it in the divestiture. The Baby Bells wanted to claim that it was a trademark for the dialing service (in the CO) and they should own it. AT&T wanted to claim that it was a phone instrument related term and they should own it. Apparently it was solved when the Patent & Trademark Office declared that AT&T had not been defending it and therefore nobody owned it anymore.