In article <1iizext.8dch1z9emwfiN%nospam@see.signature>, nospam@see.signature (Richard Maine) wrote:
> Howard Brazee <howard@brazee.net> wrote: > > > On Mon, 23 Jun 2008 08:42:40 -0500, Greg Buchner <null@none.invalid> > > wrote: > > > > >There were PC's before IBM came along with the IBM PC. > > > > Didn't IBM copy rite the term? > > I suspect you are referring to registering a trademark. You can't > copyright a word (though the way things are going...). Note also that > copyrights refer to the right to copy rather than a rite of copying. > Thus the spelling. It is true that copying a floppy on an original IBM > PC was a bit of a rite if you had only one drive, but I doubt they > copyrighted that particular rite. :-) > > I seriously doubt that IBM registered a trademark for the term "PC" > since that term was already in common generic use. Heck, you can loose a > trademark if you let your trademark become too widely generically used > after the fact, much less if it was already generically used. It > wouldn't suprise me if they trademarked "IBM PC", though I haven't > checked, but then that wasn't the question either.
They did trademark "IBM PC", yes. There were a lot of early computers before then that used "personal computer" in their advertising, and I think that a few even had "pc" in the text somewhere, but nobody previously had thought to trademark it.
