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Subject:Re: Did Microsoft really copyright "Wizard"? From:"Huber, Mike" <mrhuber -at- SOFTWARE -dot- ROCKWELL -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 13 Mar 1998 08:04:34 -0600
From the Microsoft Manual of Style (copyright date on my copy is 1995):
wizard
Always use lowercase for the generic term wizard because Wizard is a
registered trademark.
---
mike -dot- huber -at- software -dot- rockwell -dot- com
Home: nax -at- execpc -dot- com
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Mark L. Levinson [SMTP:mark -at- memco -dot- co -dot- il]
>Sent: Friday, March 13, 1998 6:13 AM
>To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
>Subject: Did Microsoft really copyright "Wizard"?
>
>Can somebody cite the source for the news that Microsoft
>copyrighted the word "Wizard"?
>
>First of all, I don't think you can copyright an isolated word
>that is not your own invention. You can trademark it, if you
>invent a connection between it and a product that it wouldn't
>otherwise describe. So maybe Microsoft trademarked the word
>"Wizard" as a description of a kind of interactive software.
>
>But if that were the case, then whether and how the word "wizard"
>is capitalized would not be an issue. If you use a word that
>differs only in capitalization from a trademark, you're still
>infringing the trademark. Maybe what Microsoft trademarked was
>some graphical representation of the word "Wizard"? (The way
>IBM trademarked the striped letters of its corporate identity?)
>
>Anyway, I downloaded the list of trademarks from Microsoft's
>website and Wizard isn't on it. TipWizard is. As of this
>writing, the latest update of the list was January.
>
>I tried to check Microsoft's list of product names, too.
>(That's products.doc.) But it's evidently a Word 97 document
>and even the standard converter won't make it readable on my
>Word 7...
>
