Chip firm Intel famously pursues firms or individuals that use the letters i+n+t+e+l as part of their company names, websites or trademarks.

But a ruling by the European Court of Justice may make that phenomenon a thing of the past.

According to the Times, Intel brought a case in the UK to prevent the word "intelmark" being used by a company operating in a different sphere, but that case was appealed to the European court.

The court ruled that a resemblance was not by itself enough to grant Intel or other companies the right to squash names. Although the case will now be referred back to the UK Court of Appeal, the Times said the European court's ruling will  be enshrined in future decisions over trademarks applied for by UK companies.

The ruling will have profound implications for a set of lawyers employed by Intel who routinely attempt to prevent firms and individuals  from using any of its trademarks - and not just the "Intel" word.

One of the most notorious cases came about several years ago when we reported at another plaice that a group setting up a yoga school for prisoners was forced by Intel to stop using the phrase "Yoga Inside".  "Inside" is one of Intel's trademarks.

Intel even tried to trademark the letter "i" once, as you can read here, in this Inquirer story. That led Mike Magee to register the name Inquirerinside, as well as intelligible.com. But his taunts failed to provoke the legal wizards at Intel to sue a humble hack, and he also couldn't persuade "Chipzilla" to buy the URLs off him either.

You can find the Times story here. X