Copyright and Trademark, 1986-1998

This folder contains about a dozen memos and letters regrading the copyrighting of NCAR Graphics software. Also contained is correspondence regarding trademarking the name "NCAR Graphics," which was ultimately granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark office in September of 1995. The copyright issues occurred in the 1986-1988 time frame. Since the inception of NCAR Graphics in the 1960s, the package was in the public domain until it was decided in 1986 to copyright the package in order to protect UCAR intellectual property. This decision occurred shortly after releasing Version 1.0 in the summer of 1986 that had been released with no copyright notice. It was decided to recall this release and replace it with a copyrighted version to be known as Version 1.00. Much confusion as to the status of various releases and distribution policies resulted from the copyrighting of the package and it took almost two years before the dust finally settled.