Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 22:20:12 -0700 (MST)
From: "M. Leo Cooper" <thegrendel@theriver.com>
To: Linux Weekly News <letters@lwn.net>
Subject: Translation of Channel One press release

Dear LWN people,

The following is a translation into reasonably literate English of the
Channel One Press release, wherein they deny that they have any evil
intentions in attempting to trademark Linux in Germany.




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     Statement Concerning the Linux Trademark Application

As discussed in today's "Heise-Newsticker", we have a trademark
application on file for the name Linux at the German patent office in
Munich.  This much is factual. The article caused some consternation, as
it in part implied that we have the intention of stealing the trademark
or in some other way gaining advantage from this action.

It is of course clear to us that we cannot claim the Linux trademark,
since it already lies in the Public Domain. In actual fact, it belongs
to Linus Torvalds.  We are also well aware that even should we succeed
in acquiring the trademark, that this would not exactly make us beloved
in the Linux community.

We had already heard rumors that another firm has exactly this intention
[of trademarking Linux]. At first we could not believe that the
Linux trademark was not already spoken for in Germany. A trip to the
patent office convinced us otherwise. We immediately filed a trademark
application in order to preclude the possibility that someone else could
do the same for the purpose of commercial exploitation.

We of the Channel One Company are friends of the Linux movement, and
have absolutely no intention of profiting from this in any inappropriate
manner. We ourselves are at this time developing a Linux distribution
for office users, which we will release next year in order to help the
community of Linux users keep growing. The Intraline intranet package
which we wrote also runs under Linux.

At the linux.channel-one.de domain, we will shortly be releasing a
cartoon series starring the Linux penguin, for the amusement of the Linux
community. We are also taking other measures to encourage the spread of
the Linux OS, as can be seen on our homepage, www.channel-one.de.


Channel One GmbH
Roy Boldt

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