Re: AMD k6 cosmetic problems

H. Peter Anvin (hpa@transmeta.com)
11 Oct 1997 23:39:04 GMT

Followup to: <Pine.LNX.3.95.971011183907.10915A-100000@nightshade.z.ml.org>
By author: linux kernel account <linker@nightshade.z.ml.org>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> I think this would come down to: ia32/ia64 is too generic to be
> trademarked. IntelArchitecture-32bit IntelArchitecture-64bit is the
> perfect description of the intel chips and their varrious binary
> compatible clones.. If they couldn't trademark 80486 the sure as hell
> cant trademark a perfectly good description like ia32..
>

They couldn't trademark "386", or "486" because those are *NUMBERS*,
and the court ruled you can't own a number. However, "IA32" is
definitely *not* a number, and certainly could be trademarked.

Besides, we've used "i386" as the name for this architecture since
1991, much longer than the "IA32" moinker has been around.

-hpa

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