Re: #E-CASH: PRODUCT OR SERVICE?

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 3:18 AM 7/17/96, Stig wrote:

>Perhaps this has already been voiced on the main list (I get a filtered
>helping or two of cypherpunks), but *I'm* surprised that such a generic name
>as 'Ecash' was granted trademark status anywhere.
>
>It's like giving Microsoft a trademark on the term 'Email'...  It's nuts!
>Was the term ecash not in use before DigiCash showed up on the scene?

I agree, but note that Microsoft has gone a long way toward getting the
courts to give it full monopoly ownership of the term "windows," or
"Windows."

I guess that windows-based Symbolics machine I was using in 1984, or those
Xerox PARC windows-based D-machine, were violating the standard Microsoft
set years later.

(I admit that I bought Windows 1.0 about six months before I bought my
first Macintosh, but I also note that Windows 1.0 was a ludicrous joke, and
did not become a serious product until Windows 3.0 was released in 1990.
And Apple had their windows (Windows is a TM of The Microsoft Corporation,
all rights reserved) based machine, the Lisa, out in 1982-3.)

As for Digicash's claims on "digicash," "ecash," etc., it won't matter
much. The whole legal knot (including the patents and claims on the
algorithms) makes things more complicated, but I don't worry too much about
Digicash claiming people can't use the term "ecash."

(If anything, Digicash may have failed to protect the name aggressively
enough, and it may have entered the English language as band-aid did.)

--Tim May

Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software!
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
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Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
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