The name 'ICE' is already taken

[marlowa]

The name ICE was taken for an Internet protocol in 1998. I came across it in an ACM paper dated 1999 which referred to "ICE Protocol Specification". It stands for Information and Content Exchange. It is XML-based. The spec was submitted to W3C in October 1998. For further details see http://www.icestandard.org. I think this means that *this* ICE may not be able to be called ICE, which would be a shame, given the name of the company (ZeroC, the melting point of ice) and the names of the various components (IceStorm, Glacier etc).

If ZeroC's ICE ever becomes a standard then I think this could be an issue.

regards,

Andrew M.

[michi]

I'm not too worried about that one. Actually, there are probably tons of products (including non-IT products) that use "Ice" in their name in some way. As far as I know, it is impossible to trademark or copyright a common term such as "Ice", meaning that all these products can happily coexist without concerns about trademark infringements.

Cheers,

Michi.

[marlowa]

Actually, I never mentioned trademarks. I was just trying to point out that it is suboptimal for ICE to have more than one meaning in the context of internet communication protocols.

-Andrew

[michi]

Originally posted by marlowa
Actually, I never mentioned trademarks. I was just trying to point out that it is suboptimal for ICE to have more than one meaning in the context of internet communication protocols.

Ah, I see what you mean now. Well, I guess that's a bridge we'll somehow cross when we get to it

Cheers,

Michi.

[amrufon]

One of the math language/application that we use in my day job is called J and it was developed by JSoftware even before there was Java and Javascript. It was actually the evolutionary step of APL by Ken Iverson.

The thing is, they didn't get into any legal problems with their software ... but its sometimes confusing when your trying to discuss it with other developers. There's this moment of synchronization that you have to do so that everyone would know that whenever you say "J" its means the J Language not Java or Java script.

I actually once asked the President of JSoftware, Eric Iverson (son of Ken Iverson), why they didn't pursue the matter legally specially when Microsoft realeased their Java IDE called J. I dont remember the exact words but he basically said that it would just be a waste of money if they do that ... considering how big Microsoft is and stuff.

bathala

[marlowa]

Actually, I never mentioned trademarks. I never mentioned any legal concerns. IMO this is nothing to do with the legal side of naming software. It would seem that I did not make that clear in my first posting. I was just trying to point out that it is suboptimal for ICE to have more than one meaning in the context of internet communication protocols. If ICE every becomes a standard there will be the opportunity for ICE to be confused with the 1998 ICE that is also an internet protocol std.

-Andrew