Ted Byers wrote:
Prem Subrahmanyam wrote in message ...

It has come to my attention that using the word "Orchidarium" to refer
to an orchid-growing wardian case is an infringement of the trademark
and patents of one Orchidarium(TM) company. Hence, to respect this
company's wishes after they contacted me personally, I have changed the
link for my article and expunged any mention of the verboten name.

[snip]

This also should serve as a warning for those who use this name on their
web pages, you will probably be contacted by them soon...I suggest you
take the effort to change the name to "wardian case" and remove any
links to said company (they informed me that linking to their page is
also a violation of their alleged copyright).



While I can understand your taking the action you did, to avoid a
costly legal challenge, it seems insane to me that they would even try
to take out a trademark or copyright on the word orchidarium! It is a
perfectly valid and commonly used word in the English language (at
least among orchid growers and some commercial and government
interests). If you go to google and search on it, you will find over
a thousand web pages on which it is used, including academic and
government sites. In fact, a wardian case is just a special case of
the idea of an orchidarium (as becomes obvious on studying how both
terms are used). So, getting a trademark or patent on the word
orchidarium is about as silly as doing the same with the word
greenhouse!

Well, I guess they'll be running down all those leads and contacting
those authors to get them to change their articles as well...all I
can say is I wish them the best of luck in trying!

---Prem
www.premdesign.com