Another legal malaise. This time it is Apple.

[Bodie]

Apple Computer is being sued by The Open Group, the San Francisco company that claims ownership of the Unix trademark, for using the term Unix in conjunction with its Mac OS X operating system without a license. Apple has countersued, asking a judge to declare that the trademark is invalid, because the term Unix has become generic. This legal battle, though separate from SCO's recent claim that Linux uses copyrighted Unix source code, adds further fire to the debate over the custody of Unix--the 30 plus-year old OS originally developed by AT&T.

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[jdiffend]

Man I hope Apple wins this one!

[clark]

This has a vague sense of Deja Vu.  I thought unix had already been declared generic.  Which is why Un*x and *nix have some what evaporated.

[strobe]

SCO still exists?!

[DavidF215]

Whatever. At least Amiga shouldn't have this problem. If they had a problem with it, then they should have contacted Apple when they were first discussing BSD as a part of OS X.  IMO, it's all Microsoft's doings.

[bhoggett]

I don't think the term Unix ever became generic at all, so unless Apple can come up with a better excuse, I hope they lose this one.

Why?  Because Apple are blatantly using the name "Unix" to appeal to corporate decision making types. If they wanted to be accurate, they would be using BSD, but that doesn't carry the same weight as "Unix".  Therefore, as Apple are using someone else's trademark purely for advertising purposes, it is right and proper that they should pay for it or remove it from their documentation and promotional material.

[MarkTime]

In my opinion the term unix has gone into generic use.  Like the once copyrighted term 'pc'.

[bhoggett]

@MarkTime

You can't copyright a term. You can only trademark it.

PC always stood for "Personal Computer". The term "IBM PC" was trademarked, but whether "PC" on its own was trademarked is questionable.

Anyway, I think the term "Unix" is no more adopted into general use than "Coke", and I don't hear anyone claiming that Coca-Cola should give up their trademark...