Read my post again. Time does not matter here. It doesn't influence anything. Many cases out there have sided with the trademark holder despite the fact that they came to the table late.
I could very easily create a product, steal a name from something that isn't trademarked, trademark that name, wait ANY amount of time, and then sue the creator for trademark infringement, judgement would be in my favor.
Just because AOL waited a few years like the idiots they are, it is not an influence on the decision.
Typically a letter like this would point out to the recipient what is exactly the offending mark. You would think the lawyer who wrote this up would be smart enough to point out they are referring to GAIM.
Trademark laws in this case side with AOL(TM), IMO. Even though GAIM appeared before AIM(SM) was marked as a service mark, the date a TM or SM was granted does not have any influence on the argument "I had it out before they trademarked it"
But in response to the question "Are they similar?" Possibly. They are competing products. Possibly not. When spoken they do not sound the same. GAIM sounds the same as the word "game," as in "let's play a board game," while AIM sounds like the word "aim," as in "be sure to aim first, Jimmy"
I think that AOL will win this suit being the big corporate giant they are despite AIM being marked after GAIM's release. AOL might use the golf vs egolf case as a reference.
At a minimum, the woman will receive a refund for the times in which she bitched about service, plus maybe a buck as apology and compensation.
I'd agree that bad press does have it's effect on the market - just look at Firestone/Bridgestone. Even sales of their non-faulty tires have tail-spinned.
But one does beg the question - with all the bad press Microsoft gets with anti-trust lawsuits, flawed security, etc, how many new computer users have actually refused to use their products and/or services?
Another issue that needs to be addressed is Mac OS X's lack of support for some basic services that are supported in Mac OS 9
OS-X's biggest problems are in multimedia support. One person on the panel indicated a lack of support for color syncronization. OS-X didnt come with DVD support. Doesnt matter to me that I dont get DVD support, I just boot into OS-9 instead.
However, I use OS-X at work and it is absolutely brilliant for my work as a researcher and Java prorgammer. I love how Apple has fully implemented Java and the Darwin kernel so I can get down to my UNIX roots. Even though the OS-X itself is not well documented, the presense of Java and UNIX makes up for it. I have yet to run into OS-specific issues with the OS-X platform.
This senator is correct, companies DO have a right to contact you about products and services. Legally, however, the person receiving the spam advertising such has the ability to request to more emails (or telemarketing calls, if that's the case). There are a lot of good, well-respected companies out there that follow that law and will stop contacting you if you say so (oddly, Microsoft is one of them).
The problem with spam today is with the people who forge email addresses and mail headers to send spam. On top of that, they either dont provide opt-out options, or do not honor them if offered. Some use them to confirm that your address actually exists.
The government should be (and is) focusing efforts on making those practices illegal. The obvious problem is the enforcement of those laws with header forging being so easy.
some implementation of LDAP, or its big brother, X.500? maybe in conjunction w/ using certs?
You're describing somethign akin of PKIs: Public Key Infrastructures. If the name doesnt imply this, they also carry an entity's public key, in addition to certs.
I posted a message elsewhere on this page about something in Java that also has the capability for single-sign-on. It's the Java Authorization & Authentication Service library.
Should biometrics become mainstream someday (fingerprint scanners, etc), the problem of remembering passwords and user names would be simplified. You would simply use your biometric agent (retina, index finger) in places that currently ask for username/password.
Some states already use something like this...
DE, NJ, PA, and NY use EZ-Pass to help speed up toll plazas along their state turnpikes, bridges, and other areas that use tolls. The way it works is a little box sends that attaches to your dashboard is detected by the toll and automatically bills you by mail, eliminating the need to stop, roll the window down, and hand someone $2. Most tolls offer a discount of like 50-75 cents for using EZPass.
I know of at least one of those states I listed uses EZ Pass to enforce speed limits. People have gotten tickets for going from point A to B along a state highway with in under the amount of time it would take at the speed limit.
Microsoft could have avoided paying off XBOX Techs altogether in order to maintain their incredibly large assets and money. They could have easily changed the XBox name to something else without having to pay anything to XBOX Techs.
The reason they didnt do this was to avoid embarrasments. I guess that means they werent embarrased by the following events:
service release to Win2k less than 6 mos. after it's original release
gates getting blue-screen-of-death during Win98 demo.
If you have a Mac OS X, there's a browser known as OmniWeb that can satisfy you. It can site-by-site cookies, blocking of ads, blocking of new windows being spawned unless it's from a link, and other cool stuff.
Beleive it or not, IE 5 beta for OS X can also handle some cookie filtering on a site-by-site basis.
What's this!? M$ decides to follow a standard set by w3c!
I wonder if when Netscape implements P3P, MS strays away from the standard, websites adjust their policies because IE is used most, Netscape now imcompatible with the websites.
And if it made it difficult people would complain too. The fact that you can start using threads and not worry too much about language details and concentrate on the concepts should be seen as a strength.
ok, you got me on that one. Java did create a way of writing threads across multiple platforms that actually works.
True, but then I'd just say that being able to program effectively would make an advanced programmer
Depends on who you're talking to. If you're talking to a manager who's not much of a techie, that would work, but if you're talking to someone who truely knows multithreading inside&out, then they can call your bluff and and ask you to explain what makes you a better multi-threader over the average programmer, in which case you've been had, because you wont be able to come up with much.
Last week at the JavaOne conference Allen Holub of Holub Associates gave an excellent presentation of taming java threads. Among the reasons Java's threads are though is because the spec on how they are handled is not well written. The talk was for two hours (most sessions were only one), and because of other items on my agenda couldnt stick around for the second hour, but his slides are at his website www.holub.com. I did find his first hour very intriuging in how Java implements some concepts from multi-threading.
Its too bad that writing threaded code is still considered to be an "advanced coding skill".
Java unfortunately makes threading so easy, it's one of it's shortcommings. Anyone can write code to take advantage of multiple threads, but without knowing exactly what's happening under the hood, unnecesssary things happen to degrade the performance on the Java VM. I know my first few multi-threaded programs in Java didnt turn out as I had hoped - performance was significantly worse than a comparable single-threaded version.
I feel that being able to multithread code effectively in Java would make a programmer advanced in that topic.
I would say otherwise. BSD is on the upringing. Apple selected FreeBSD as the core to OS-X. They had good reasons in BSD as opposed to other UNIX variants. I use OSX at work (as a matter of fact, I'm using it now) and I absolutely love having UNIX on here as opposed to Windows and older MacOS's. By having BSD in a major commercial OS, it will obtain more exposure and hence lead to better things for not only FreeBSD, but other BSD flavors as well.
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I could very easily create a product, steal a name from something that isn't trademarked, trademark that name, wait ANY amount of time, and then sue the creator for trademark infringement, judgement would be in my favor.
Just because AOL waited a few years like the idiots they are, it is not an influence on the decision.
Typically a letter like this would point out to the recipient what is exactly the offending mark. You would think the lawyer who wrote this up would be smart enough to point out they are referring to GAIM.
That'll beat the TM laws to some degree, but then AOL won't like having a non-AOL IM tool on their network.
But in response to the question "Are they similar?" Possibly. They are competing products. Possibly not. When spoken they do not sound the same. GAIM sounds the same as the word "game," as in "let's play a board game," while AIM sounds like the word "aim," as in "be sure to aim first, Jimmy"
I think that AOL will win this suit being the big corporate giant they are despite AIM being marked after GAIM's release. AOL might use the golf vs egolf case as a reference.
I'd agree that bad press does have it's effect on the market - just look at Firestone/Bridgestone. Even sales of their non-faulty tires have tail-spinned.
But one does beg the question - with all the bad press Microsoft gets with anti-trust lawsuits, flawed security, etc, how many new computer users have actually refused to use their products and/or services?
So what? People can simply post illegal content to other newsgroups just as easily.
OS-X's biggest problems are in multimedia support. One person on the panel indicated a lack of support for color syncronization. OS-X didnt come with DVD support. Doesnt matter to me that I dont get DVD support, I just boot into OS-9 instead.
However, I use OS-X at work and it is absolutely brilliant for my work as a researcher and Java prorgammer. I love how Apple has fully implemented Java and the Darwin kernel so I can get down to my UNIX roots. Even though the OS-X itself is not well documented, the presense of Java and UNIX makes up for it. I have yet to run into OS-specific issues with the OS-X platform.
The problem with spam today is with the people who forge email addresses and mail headers to send spam. On top of that, they either dont provide opt-out options, or do not honor them if offered. Some use them to confirm that your address actually exists.
The government should be (and is) focusing efforts on making those practices illegal. The obvious problem is the enforcement of those laws with header forging being so easy.
You're describing somethign akin of PKIs: Public Key Infrastructures. If the name doesnt imply this, they also carry an entity's public key, in addition to certs.
I posted a message elsewhere on this page about something in Java that also has the capability for single-sign-on. It's the Java Authorization & Authentication Service library.
It's not open source, but Sun Microsystems has a Java package known as the Java Authorization & Authentication Service (JAAS). I think the source can be obtained and changes requested by way of the Java Developer Connection.
Should biometrics become mainstream someday (fingerprint scanners, etc), the problem of remembering passwords and user names would be simplified. You would simply use your biometric agent (retina, index finger) in places that currently ask for username/password.
Sounds similar to how George W won the election, he kept saying "I'm the president-elect," and he got the office.
Right now they're only stills of most (not all) of the globe, but who knows where Microsoft's "Innovation" may take them.
Does know if it is possible to use satellite imagery in real-time, like in the movie Enemy of the State?
You cant. USGS is a government organization: www.usgs.gov
I can picture it now: Leaving my driveway for work in the morning will cost a 50c toll to enter my street.
I know of at least one of those states I listed uses EZ Pass to enforce speed limits. People have gotten tickets for going from point A to B along a state highway with in under the amount of time it would take at the speed limit.
The reason they didnt do this was to avoid embarrasments. I guess that means they werent embarrased by the following events:
Beleive it or not, IE 5 beta for OS X can also handle some cookie filtering on a site-by-site basis.
I wonder if when Netscape implements P3P, MS strays away from the standard, websites adjust their policies because IE is used most, Netscape now imcompatible with the websites.
Additional story at ZDNet
ok, you got me on that one. Java did create a way of writing threads across multiple platforms that actually works.
True, but then I'd just say that being able to program effectively would make an advanced programmer
Depends on who you're talking to. If you're talking to a manager who's not much of a techie, that would work, but if you're talking to someone who truely knows multithreading inside&out, then they can call your bluff and and ask you to explain what makes you a better multi-threader over the average programmer, in which case you've been had, because you wont be able to come up with much.
Its too bad that writing threaded code is still considered to be an "advanced coding skill".
Java unfortunately makes threading so easy, it's one of it's shortcommings. Anyone can write code to take advantage of multiple threads, but without knowing exactly what's happening under the hood, unnecesssary things happen to degrade the performance on the Java VM. I know my first few multi-threaded programs in Java didnt turn out as I had hoped - performance was significantly worse than a comparable single-threaded version.
I feel that being able to multithread code effectively in Java would make a programmer advanced in that topic.
What degrees and years of experience do you have already?
I would say otherwise. BSD is on the upringing. Apple selected FreeBSD as the core to OS-X. They had good reasons in BSD as opposed to other UNIX variants. I use OSX at work (as a matter of fact, I'm using it now) and I absolutely love having UNIX on here as opposed to Windows and older MacOS's. By having BSD in a major commercial OS, it will obtain more exposure and hence lead to better things for not only FreeBSD, but other BSD flavors as well.