It does appear that IBM does not hold a trademark on the IBM name as a whole, but the stylized IBM line logo. Taking a look at the trademark application, it appears that Dave Foley (!) is only trademarking the MAME logo, which consists of a stylized “MAME” with “MULTIPLE ARCADE MACHINE EMULATOR” underneath. The idea appears to be that Foley is going to sue anyone who illegally uses the MAME logo.
Scents, colors, and sounds can also be trademarked, and all trademark applications are not for exclusive rights, but for a certain field. The MAME logo is being trademarked for “Computer software that enables the emulation of multiple arcade games and their associated hardware, allowing them to run on a general purpose computer operating system.” Thus, it appears that if, say, Murray’s Albanian Mudflap Exports decided to refer to itself only by its acronym, Foley wouldn’t seek legal action unless he used the blue MAME logo, since Murray’s business has nothing to do with arcade games or computer software.
Oh yeah- as they say in webland, IANAL. Or, in layman’s terms, I am not a lawyer.
I’ve wondered about this before. Does this mean I could open a “Microsoft Pizza” restaurant, without fear of a nastygram from the lawyers in Redmond? (since AFAIK Microsoft is not involved in making pizza)
Mr. Foley did not design the logo, however, did not pay for the logo to be designed, and only uses the logo in commerce as a client. This logo isn’t his to trademark.
You might get a nastygram and you might even get action brought against you, but you would stand a very good chance of winning in court. There’s nothing MS can point to that would in any way tie them to pizzas or you to computers, so as long as you don’t start selling software MS can suck it up.
“Microsoft Pizza” actually makes sense, for a pizza shop using a microwave instead of a conventional oven. Just use a slogan explaining the microwave makes the pizza soft.
