Amiga Inc sues Hyperion VOF for trademark infringement

[benJamin]

Without meaning to sound like a Hyperion apologist, it is very clear that they conduct themselves in a very professional manner with their corporate image.

It appears that Amiga Inc. are intending to look like the poor, hard-done-by, run-into-the-ground IT start-up who have been bludgeoned unfairly by a classier company.  They are trying to look like the underdog who have tried very hard to 'do the right thing'.  The whole website appears to be a well-orchestrated set-up.  Hooray for the Wayback Machine!

Ahem.

Not to mention that both companies expressed financial difficulties during 2001 and Hyperion are well known to have taken on external contracts to supplement income in order to continue working on the OS4 project when Amiga Inc. looked to be going under.  I really hope some communique will be disclosed showing acknowledgement of these instances in Hyperion's case.

Off to read more of Piru's discoveries and awaiting the next batch there is sure to be.  I hope that in Fleecy's statement I see actual bank transfer receipts, unlike the 'directive to pay' notes in Bill's statement, which don't appear to prove anything at all.


jaminJay
"This is becoming as much fun as /.'s coverage of any RIAA lawsuit!"

[SHADES]

Hyperions response is not proof. Just more chatter.
Let's see the original contracts and proof in writing like AMIGA have submitted.

I don't want to take sides on this issue but I certainly will not be a sheep and follow the flag wavers of Hyperion who keep saying Hyperion are angels. They were a company payed to do a task. That company could have been Sony or Microsoft instead of Hyperion. I sometimes wonder if that would have sung a different tune. The courts will decide who owns what here. It's a shame it has come to this. Still no product regardless of whos fault and the community continues to suffer yet again. Time for that PS3.

[dammy]

Guess we shall see who the REAL Boing Ball supporters really are for AI. :popcorn:

Dammy

[Glittering]

@dammy

Count me in as a Boing Ball supporter  :-)

Amiga Inc have been baddies for many years but everyone knew that. No one expected Hyperion to be the same, they even built themselves up to gain the Amiga communities trust and respect while giving them hope for the future with Amiga OS. Now all it turns out to be, is Hyperions game to steal Amiga Inc property.

Inexcusable and certainly not defend-able.

[guru-666]

@glittering
you have no clue.....go back to your troll cave.  If a-inc put you up to this just know.. they don;t pay there people.

[Glittering]

Your post proves exactly what i was saying earlier, slag of Amiga Inc its fine, slag of Hyperion (who have badly hurt the community) and your a troll.

Thanks for proving that.

[JoannaK]

Hmm. I had hoped a bit better stuff..

Edit: yes.. I was refering to Hyperion's reply. Ah well, they have some time before they have to explain themselves to USA court so there's hope they get their defence in order ..

I'm not saying that people should ever forget those stupid (not to mention highly questionable) things AmigaInc did (partypack, ClubAmiga etc) but I fail to see their importance on this case concernign OS4 and Amiga trademarks+IP. Unless of course they were mentioned by hyperion in a sole purpose of getting some sympathy votes.

My reply to that: Hypeiron.. If you indeed *were* aware of these AmigaInc's projects, you should have warned people *IN TIME*, it does not make much good to talk about them now, five years after you (alongside Eyetech and various AInc followers) were covering up the mess..

[benJamin]

"To get that content, Amiga was relying on the Amiga developers.  The Amiga developers, in turn, were relying on having OS 4.2 with DE on it because they only want to develop using new Amiga computers."

Okay.  So, there were a limited amount of machines that don't exist with OS4 and OS4 SDKs out there.  Amiga Inc. surely had at least one of these motherboards running OS4 and had access to the SDK from Hyperion.  The OS as released in the developer pre-release must have been enough to develop the DE SDK for it, otherwise there would have to be a variation in the contract for Hyperion to develop the missing functionality, yes?

And where were these new Amiga computers?  The A1s that weren't authorised to exist from the company who bailed Amiga Inc. out got discontinued due to Amiga's inaction.  Those that did exist are still running an ever-improving OS4 which still DOES NOT HAVE A DE SDK on it.

You CANNOT blame the 'lack' of DE SDK sales on a lack of OS4.  The DE SDK, like DE itself, is designed to work on multiple architectures.  Why hasn't the mobile phone industry gone bankrupt?  Surely their multimedia content is produced by ex-Amiga enthusiasts (or the companies that bought ex-Amiga talent to port ex-Amiga games to the Java platform).

I will continue reading the document, but Amiga Inc. cannot seriously believe, even though they assert, that their DE business failed because of a third party whose hands they appear to have quite erroneously tied, can they?  They had EVERY opportunity to develop and release the DE SDK for the OS4 platform, which would have solidified commitment from hardware manufacturers to produce mainstream computing systems for said environment.

Also, they stated in no uncertain terms after buying Gateway's assets that they are a SOFTWARE company.  They seem to want to appear to be a hardware company again...


jaminJay
"I'll read into this whatever it appears to be saying."

[Boot_WB]

erm.. Didn't Amiga Inc, Washington go insolvent?

[The 2001 agreement is between] "Amiga Inc (hereafter: "Amiga"), a State of Washington, USA Corporation" [and Hyperion and Eyetech].

If so then surely clause 2.07 becomes valid:

[Clause 2.07 states that] "In the event Amiga files for bankruptcy or becomes insolvent, the Amiga One Partners are granted an exclusive, perpetual, world-wide and royalty free right and license to develop, use, modify and market the Software and OS4 under the "Amiga OS" trademark and at their sole expense."

[JoannaK]

Clause 2.07 would require some solid proof and (IANAL) lawcase initiated by Hyperion for it to become legally binding. And even then, I'd expect bankruptcy lawers (or ainc shareowners) to be able to put Ainc's property/ip into sale. And I seriously doubt hat Hyperion would be the highest bidder.

Besides,. If that had happened, it should have happened years ago (when Amiga inc had cash problems), and it never did.

[dammy]

f so then surely clause 2.07 becomes valid:
Quote:


    [Clause 2.07 states that] "In the event Amiga files for bankruptcy or becomes insolvent, the Amiga One Partners are granted an exclusive, perpetual, world-wide and royalty free right and license to develop, use, modify and market the Software and OS4 under the "Amiga OS" trademark and at their sole expense."

Except they did the shell game and transferred everything to KMOS before letting AI WA wither on the vine.   Then this Arctic contract makes it even worse for Hyperion since Hyperion is agreeing, by default, that KMOS is the owner of the Amiga IP.

Stick a fork in Hyperion, they are done, IMO.

Dammy

[benJamin]

Prior to the announcement of the Amiga Centre at Kent, any jury hearing the case would have come to the following conclusion:

"The jury finds that, in the case of trademark infringement, the Omega name is not well known, much less known for software of any level of quality."

This is a well-orchestrated set-up.

QED


jaminJay
"Possessions are fleeting." - Homer J. Simpson

[benJamin]

After all that reading, I can honestly say (and IANAJ) that the case presented on behalf of Amiga has a number of subtle self-referential conflicts which will be difficult to explain.

Don't get me wrong, I want Amiga, Hyperion and ACube to release, in unison, their products for the benefit of each other and the customers that Amiga have strived to assert representation of.  Well, at least their American customers.

And as my last comment (until Hyperion's response is published) before resuming normal, non-legal-battle related forum interaction follows:

If those legal documents were written under Wiki conventions, they would be marked "This article needs clean up" and "This article's style is not that of a legal document".   :lol:

I await the response.


jaminJay
"Learning is fun!" - Bender Bending Rodriguez

[Piru]

@Argo

My theory is that the kernel is already sufficiently divorced from the old 68K Exec that this is new technology.

@Jose

ExecSG (or whatever it's called) is said to be rewriteen from scratch but compatible without an extra layer.

Posted by  Ben Hermans/Hyperion (Registered user) on 05-Aug-2003 08:11:23

All current Exec functiionality was preserved in ExecSG and for compatibility reasons even some of the quirks were preserved.

There is even a little Exec code in ExecSG.

source

[humppa]

@Piru

Posted by Rogue on 27-Aug-2003 0:11:30

ExecSG has always been 100% PPC

Source

[Piru]

@humppa

And? These two declarations are not mutually exclusive.