On Tue, 17 Jun 1997, Curt Sampson wrote:

> On Tue, 17 Jun 1997, Matthew Jacob wrote:
> 
> > I suggest to both NetBSD-sparc && sparclinux that you you change the name
> > to 'spark'. Don't fight it- eat the day or two of pain and just go around
> > the damn fools.
> 
> That would likely still leave us open to trademark infringement,
> because `spark' is sufficiently close to `sparc,' and is used in
> a similar context, such that it would (as it's obviously intended)
> likely make people believe that we are talking about the thing
> referred to by the `Sparc' trademark.

I don't know about Canadian TM law, but it is my understanding that US TM
law deals with the concepts of "distinctiveness," "liklihood of
confusion" and "appropriation of goodwill."

There are US cases like the Lexis <-> Lexus case that indicate that very
similar spellings will not necessarily infringe.