AT&T vs. CSS (PC/Tools)

Dominick Samperi samperi at mancol.UUCP
Mon May 30 09:11:08 AEST 1988


The May issue of UNIX Review reports that AT&T won an out-of-court
settlement in its suit aginst Custom Software Systems, Inc. The
suit claimed that PC/Tools and PC/Spell, both marketed by CSS,
"used aspects of UNIX," but CSS did not purchase a license from
AT&T. Does this mean that it is illegal to market versions of
the standard tools (cp, mv, tar, etc.) for DOS or for other
operating systems, or enhanced versions of these tools for UNIX,
without first buying a license from AT&T?

Does AT&T have exclusive rights to use these utility names? Would it
still be illegal to market tools with similar capabilities that are
named differently?

What exactly does "used aspects of UNIX" mean anyway????
-- 
Dominick Samperi, Manhattan College, NYC
    manhat!samperi at NYU.EDU           ihnp4!rutgers!nyu.edu!manhat!samperi
    philabs!cmcl2!manhat!samperi     ihnp4!rutgers!hombre!samperi
              (^ that's an ell)      uunet!swlabs!mancol!samperi



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