She hasn't been in charge at HP for 10 years.  I rather doubt she had anything 
to do with this.

-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf 
Of J O Skip Robinson
Sent: Monday, September 21, 2015 5:44 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Accept nothing less than Z

Well I for one am not voting for Fiorina until she gets this whole thing 
straightened out. 

.
.
.
J.O.Skip Robinson
Southern California Edison Company
Electric Dragon Team Paddler 
SHARE MVS Program Co-Manager
626-302-7535 Office
323-715-0595 Mobile
[email protected]

-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf 
Of Charles Mills
Sent: Monday, September 21, 2015 3:36 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Accept nothing less than Z

Fundamentally (IANAL) the test is "might it create confusion in a potential 
customer's mind." You could not open a restaurant called macdonalds even though 
their trademark is on McDonald's. (Well, you could, but you would hear from 
Mickey D's lawyers, and they would be grumpy.)

In this case the customer is fairly sophisticated. It's hard to see an Global 
5000 IT manager ordering a Z from HP and being shocked when it arrived and was 
an Intel server, not a mainframe. Unlike your macdonalds restaurant where some 
poor doofus might wander in and expect to get a Big Mac.

OTOH might a negative press article about the HP Z become conflated in some 
CIO's mind with the IBM z? Perhaps more of an argument there. As McDonald's 
would argue that if I read a negative Yelp review of your restaurant I might 
hold it against McDonald's.

Charles

-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf 
Of Paul Gilmartin
Sent: Monday, September 21, 2015 3:16 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Accept nothing less than Z

On 2015-09-21 15:49, Charles Mills wrote:
> I saw that and almost posted it here.
> 
> IBM has a registered trademark on "z Systems" and on "System z." If I were an 
> IBM trademark lawyer I would be taking a very long, hard look at HP Z.
>  
Are trademarks case-sensitive?  I've long wondered about "zFS" vs. "ZFS"
(GIYF).  I don't know that either is trademarked, and I'm not allowed to do 
searches in such areas.

I know that The Workstation Group is constrained to use "Uni-XEDIT"
in order to avoid infringing on IBM's "XEDIT".  Does "HP Z" likewise avoid 
infringing on "Z"?  Can one trademark a single letter? I believe it's 
impossible to trademark any simple number ("9672"?  "3390"?).


----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN

The information contained in this message is confidential, protected from 
disclosure and may be legally privileged.  If the reader of this message is not 
the intended recipient or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this 
message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, 
distribution, copying, or any action taken or action omitted in reliance on it, 
is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful.  If you have received this 
communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to this 
message and destroy the material in its entirety, whether in electronic or hard 
copy format.  Thank you.


----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN

Reply via email to