Originally posted by: SunnyD
Originally posted by: ConstipatedVigilante
Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
You know, I wouldn't be surprised if they can't use the 9800 name with these cards. I wouldn't put it past AMD to sue them on behalf of ATI for stealing the name.
So many dumb lawsuits these days anyway you know.
I think they already would have over the 8500 name.
Correct - you can't trademark or copyright a number. That's why Intel actually came up with the "Pentium" name with the 80586... they wanted a name to register so that AMD/Cyrix/IDT/World+Dog couldn't use the 586 moniker as synonymous with Intel's product. That's why we also now have Core, Opteron, Athlon, Duron, Sempron, Phenom, etc...
On the right track, but incorrect overall. Intel sued AMD and Cyrix in a joint lawsuit over their use of the numbers 286, 386 and 486 to describe their processors. The Pentium was only known as the P5 at that time...to which everyone assumed was shorthand for "Processor 586", no one knew that P5 would later be noted by Intel as only a product codename.
The claim by Intel was not trademark or copyright: it was
intellectual property. NBC did the same thing to David Letterman with the Top 10 List when he left for CBS...except CBS didn't want to pay to fight it, and Dave renamed it specifically to "The Late Show Top 10 List".
Intel knew they would lose the lawsuit the day they filed it. And in fact, their court date lasted a single date before it was thrown out. Intel certainly hoped it would last more than a day or two before getting tossed because...
Despite the loss in court, it was Intel's largest victory in their company's history (yes, vastly eclipsing Core2). Please ignore the fact that fighting the lawsuit financially crippled AMD and Cyrix finally called it quits...Intel was filing additionals facts and papers several times a week leading up to their day in court in order to generate news stories. Each time something new was mentioned by the media, the P5 processor, with its superscalar pipeline architecture (something that sounded soooo cool), also was mentioned.
Shortly before the lawsuit was to be heard, Intel tried to "solidify" their intellectual property rights by giving their processor an actual name instead of calling it 586 (no, nobody could figure out the reasoning behind that strategy).
In other words, they got about a billion dollars worth of free advertising.
Pentium became a household word.
History was guaranteed.