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SCORE ONE FOR THE LITTLE GUY.
IBM Corp., the $64 billion computer giant, has lost a six-year battle in a lawsuit it filed to prevent a $5-million spare-parts distributor from calling itself Big Blue Products Inc. The distributor now has received a trademark for the name from the U.S. Department of Commerce Patent and Trademark Office.
Big Blue Products, based in Huntington, N.Y., began operating under that name in 1984. But five years later, Big Blue Products President Jeffrey Alnwick received a letter from IBM demanding that Big Blue Products stop using the term that has been an IBM nickname for many years. The letter stated, "Big Blue is a trademark of the IBM...