Chapter 5. Trademarks

In June of 2001, Slashdot led with the headline, “More Trouble With AOL And GAIM” (http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/06/25/2115200). Mark Spencer, the author of GAIM (later renamed “Gaim”) explained it in his own words:

Well, AOL is at it again. In 1998, I wrote a program called GAIM which provided Linux users with a way to participate in AOL’s Instant Messenger (tm) service. GAIM is one of the best examples of Open Source software in action....

In July of 1999, I received a letter from AOL’s Legal Representation requesting that we remove their AOL trademark and logo from our web site and product name, which we promptly did. Now, in 2001, the same firm has sent us notice requiring that we change the name of the product...because they believe GAIM’s name to be confusingly similar to the AIM trademark....