Re: WCAP web site??

[Shawn Mamros <mamros@MIT.EDU>]

>As a federal-assigned identifier of a publicly-held license, CAN call 
>letters be legally trademarked?  I mean, how does that work when you've got 
>the same call letters ending up on five different stations - and five 
>different owners - within five years?

Well, stations certainly have applied for trademarks for their calls,
and the trademark office has granted them.  I'm very familiar with
at least one example of a station doing so. :-)

Most stations pick their own calls, and the station gets to keep
them unless they either voluntarily give them up, or the station
loses its license.  There have been one or two cases where calls
were granted, then forced to be given up because the FCC realizes
belatedly that said calls spelled something which could be considered
obscene, but that doesn't apply to the vast majority of call letter
choices.

-Shawn Mamros
E-mail to: mamros@mit.edu