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Subject:RE: What do I call this doodad? From:"Andrew Warren" <awarren -at- synaptics -dot- com> To:"technical writing plus" <doc-x -at- earthlink -dot- net>, "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Thu, 15 Mar 2007 15:54:27 -0700
technical writing plus wrote:
> I always thought that 'Flash' was the name of a company. I think that
> 'Memory Stick' is also trademarked.
Technical (if that is your true name):
"Flash" is the name of a company, the name of a comic-book superhero,
the nickname of innumerable athletes, and the name of an Adobe
animation-authoring application. It's also an adjective that refers
generically to a type of non-volatile computer memory, and there are no
trademark issues with using it as such: Neither Toshiba, which invented
flash memory and first used the word "flash" to describe it, nor Intel,
which produced the first commercial flash chip, has a trademark on the
word.
"Memory Stick", on the other hand, is indeed trademarked; when
capitalized that way, it refers to a particular flash-memory-device
format developed by Sony. Usage in the generic sense (i.e.,, lowercase
"memory stick") probably doesn't infringe, but I'm no lawyer.
-Andrew
=== Andrew Warren - awarren -at- synaptics -dot- com
=== Synaptics, Inc - Santa Clara, CA
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