Is Amiga (the company) dead?

[BerndW]

I was "offline" for a few years, and just visited www.amiga.com. Is this the official site? Because when I go to the shop and try to buy something (add something to cart, then click Checkout) it gives a Security Alert which says that the certificate expired in 2005. Does this mean that they stopped selling in 2005, and are now... dead? Sure nobody buys from such a company today, if they have no SSL and the browser does not even open the page. So what happened?

[BerndW]

I think they are still selling, either through the shop

Yes, that's what I meant, the shop could not possibly have been working since last year, because of this expired HTTPS certificate:

Security Alert

The security certificate has expired or is not yet valid.

Valid from:
Thursday, December 09, 2004 18:08:06

Valid to:
Friday, December 09, 2005 18:08:06

Subject:
E = webmaster@amiga.com
CN = www.amiga.com
OU = Operations
O = Amiga Inc
L = Redmond
S = Washington
C = US

[BerndW]

That's cos they're now a registered corporation in Delaware after the whole

Me totally confused now... This company is definitely not from Delaware...

whois amiga.com:

Amiga, Inc.
P.O. Box 887
Ravensdale, Washington 98051
United States

If there is a company in Delaware, it seems to be unrelated to this www.amiga.com domain. What does the Delaware company do? Do they have a web site?

Maybe Amiga Inc. is doing some Missing Trader VAT Fraud

I heard that a lot of companies that sell online don't pay VAT. Until they get caught...

[BerndW]

No VAT in the USA. If they send something internationally, the recipient is responsible for any of that.

That was true before 1. July 2003. But times change, as it was explained in this forum. Today even US companies have to collect VAT on online sales like downloadable games, if the customer is in the European Union:

- http://www.kagi.com/solutions/taxvat.html
- http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article.php/2214671
- http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/06/13/july_1_is_vat_day/

[BerndW]

This is all very very interesting.

From various online searches, I found that there are three "Amiga, Inc.": one is from the Gateway days, but I cannot find where it was incorporated. It is the company where Jim Collas was president. Does anybody know more about this "Amiga, Inc."?

Because this is so confusing (THREE "Amiga, Inc." and all independent!) I think we should write something like "Amiga, Inc. (Washington)" or "Amiga, Inc. (Delaware)", otherwise nobody understands which company is meant.

I checked that patents expire 20 years after the date of the first filing, so I would guess that the original Amiga patents are not relevant for Amiga any more.

While searching for this on patente I also found out something maybe interesting at www.uspto.gov. In the Trademarks section, you can search for all "Amiga" trademarks. And there it says that in Juli and August of this year, which is only a few days ago, Amiga, Inc. (Delaware) requested several trademarks for "Amiga". These trademarks appear to be like the ones owned by Gateway and then by Amiga, Inc. (Washington). So, why would the Delaware company do such a filing now in 2006, if they already owned them?

Another thing that can be found only in German maybe, is that in 1997 a German court concluded that ESCOM did not explicitly obtain any rights, or at least any exclusive rights, for the Amiga 3.1 operating system:

In der zwischen der Commodore-Amiga-Gruppe und der X. geschlossenen Veträgen ist nur von -sämtlichen aufgrund der Patente bestehenden Rechte, Titel und Rechtsansprüche- die Rede; das Betriebssystem OS3.1 ist dort nicht als solches bezeichnet. Den vorgelegten Unterlagen über eine Vereinbarung zwischen diesen Parteien vom 13.03.1995 lässt sich deshalb nicht hinreichend überprüfbar entnehmen, daß die X. die ausschliesslichen Lizenzrechte an dem Betriebssystem erworben hat.

So, if Amiga, Inc. (Delaware) owns no patents, no trademarks, and no operating system, why does it even exist? This I cannot understand.

[BerndW]

Also the Wikipedia had very old information, which is why I asked in this forum:

- Amiga (disambiguation)
- Amiga, Inc.

Maybe somebody can update this, and explain that there is one "Amiga, Inc. (Washington)" and one "Amiga, Inc. (Delaware)", and another one from before 1998? Otherwise nobody can understand, if "disambiguation" is itself ambiguous when it puts three different companies with the same name in a single entry as if it was one company.

[BerndW]

pierre wrote:
there are NOT 3 differnt amiga Inc.  there is one.  It started after/durign the gateway period.  they have moved around, maybe for some leagal/finacal reason.

There may not be three, but that there are at least two I am 100% sure, and you can verify:

1 = Washington UBI number 601 983 734, incorporated 30. September 1999 (source: http://www.secstate.wa.gov/corps/search.aspx)

2 = Delaware file number 3712284, incorporated 7. October 2003, now operating from New York (sources: https://sos-res.state.de.us/tin/GINameSearch.jsp, http://appsext5.dos.state.ny.us/corp_public/corpsearch.entity_search_entry)

These are totally different companies. A separate legal entity is not the same as "moving around". A lot of confusion is because people do not understand this. As to why the same persons (same president at least) decided to have two companies with the same name, anybody can judge by their own standards. I think it is something like deliberate deception.

So, who knows where I can find information about the "Amiga, Inc." where Jim Collas was president? I looked in South Dakota and California, but cannot find anything.

[BerndW]

they had to do this as they where being sued, it the same company. don't get to confused it's not worth it. Same company moving around....

So, you are saying it is one company for the purpose of representing what is left of the Amiga IP, but it is two conveniently different companies when it comes to being sued? That would be a bit too easy, wouldn't it? If A and B are not the same in front of a court, then it also means that they need to find a way to move the good things out of A and into B. As the new trademark filings done by the new company appear to indicate, they have not find such a way.

there is only one amiga inc.  it was started by gateway and was cut loose at some point (became privatly held).  After that I may have changed owernership of managment but it the same company with the same assets! ... My main point is there CAN'T be two companys called amiga inc at the same time, just like you can't start another "blockbuster" or "sony".

I do not understand your insistence. I (and others) provided links indicating that this is not so. In the USA you can have one company with the same name in each different state. There are 50 states. Washington is one state. Delaware is another state.