effects and incompatibilities between GPG1.0.6 and PGP CKT 0

[Florian Weimer]

Kurt Fitzner <kurt-fitzner@home.com> writes:

> On 08-Jul-2001 Florian Weimer wrote:
> 
>> PGP 2.3a et al. were relased by 'Phil's Pretty Good Software'.
>> Mr. Zimmerman probably sold the trademark together with his other
>> rights.
>> 
>>> Fact is that they don't seem to go after all those altered versions.
>> 
>> But nobody can be sure that they won't in the future.
> 
> This is not entirely true.  Trademark law is similar to patent law,
> whereby a known trademark 'infringement', if it is not defended,
> essentially ceases to be an infringement.

The analogy to patents is wrong, patents can be enforced selectively
and remain still valid.  (This is one of the problems associated with
patents: they can slumber for years and pop up after a substantial
amount of technology related to the patent has been deployed by
others.)

In any case, NAI could stop the distribution of the CKT based on their
rights under copyright.  AFAIK, distributing modified versions is in
violation of the NAI license terms.  So they don't have to rely on
their trademark.