From: anderson@bigun.enet.dec.com (Keith J. Anderson)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: DEC HAS APPLIED FOR "DEC ADA" AS A TRADEMARK IN AUSTRALIA
Date: 1 Sep 92 06:05:41 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation (Australia)

From the Ada FAQ:

7) Is Ada a registered trademark of the US government?

    (from the AdaIC)
    Prior to November 30, 1987, the name "Ada" was a registered trademark.  In 
    the December 1987 issue of the Ada Information Clearinghouse Newsletter, Ms.
    Virginia Castor, then Director of the Ada Joint Program Office (AJPO), 
    announced that the Department of Defense would thereafter rely on a 
    certification mark instead of a trademark.

    (The certification mark is a Pentagon-shaped symbol with a "Validated Ada" 
    message, and can be seen on the documentation of validated Ada compilers.)

    The following is the text of the 1987 AJPO announcement.

			     From the Director, AJPO

    The Ada Joint Program Office has announced that the Federal registration of 
    Ada as a trademark will not be maintained after November 30, 1987.

    Under the rules for trademark registrations, the owner of a Federally 
    registered trademark must file an affidavit after the mark has been 
    registered for five years, but before the sixth anniversary of registration
    in order to keep its Federally recognized status.  A legal representative 
    of the AJPO explained at a meeting of the Ada Board on October 27, 1987, 
    that a decision was made over a year ago to allow the registration to lapse.

    A trademark is a word, name, symbol, or device adopted and used by a 
    manufacturer or merchant to identify his goods, to distinguish them from 
    those manufactured and sold by others, and to indicate the source of the 
    goods (see Title 15 United States Code section 1127).  The AJPO adopted Ada 
    as a trademark in 1979 and first used it on computer programs and literature
    associated with computer programs on May 8, 1979.  The primary reason for 
    obtaining Federal recognition of the trademark use was to be able to police 
    the use of the term Ada and assure that it was not used to describe any 
    unauthorized subsets or supersets of the Ada computer programming language.  
    The AJPO has freely granted licenses to use the Ada mark to persons 
    complying or agreeing to comply with certain trademark guidelines.

    In July of 1986, the AJPO realized that, in view of the widespread use of 
    the term Ada referring to the Ada computer programming language rather 
    than a specific program or manual from the AJPO or a licensee, the law 
    provided a method more appropriate than a trademark for recognizing the 
    preservation of the integrity of the Ada language.  The same section of the 
    United States Code that defines a trade mark also defines another type of 
    mark called a "certification mark."  Such a mark may be used to certify 
    "quality, accuracy, or other characteristics" of goods or services.

    In order to be a validated Ada compiler, a compiler must pass an extensive 
    suite of programs called the Ada Compiler Validation Capability (ACVC).  The
    AJPO has adopted a certification mark to show that a compiler has passed the
    ACVC and is a validated compiler or a compiler derived from a validated base
    compiler as defined in the Ada Compiler Validations Procedures and 
    Guidelines (version 1.1 of which was issued in January 1987).  The 
    certification mark may also be used on certain literature accompanying or 
    documenting a validated compiler.  Information concerning the proper use 
    of the certification mark was distributed to interested parties during the 
    summer of 1987.

The AJPO has moved to the certification of validated Ada compiler as the
means to preserve the integrity of the Ada language.

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