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McAfee puts spanner into Intel’s sell off

by on08 September 2016


I didn’t sell you my name

Industry colourful character John McAfee might be getting ready to put a spanner in the works of Intel’s multi-billion dollar spin off of its security business.

For those who came in late, Chipzilla is going to spin out its security business under the McAfee name. The chip maker has signed an agreement with TPG for a deal that would see its Intel Security business as a separate cybersecurity company in which Intel shareholders would hold 49 percent of the equity with the balance held by the investment firm. Intel would also receive $3.1 billion in cash. The new company would be named McAfee.

However John McAfee, claims he had not assigned the rights to his personal name and wants to start using it.

Apparently what got McAfee’s goat was when Chipzilla wrote to MGT Capital Investments, a company of which John McAfee is executive chairman and CEO, about its plans to change its name to John McAfee Global Technologies.

In its letter, produced in court by John McAfee, Intel has asked for confirmation that MGT will not change its name “to one that includes the MCAFEE trademark or otherwise use the MCAFEE name as a trademark”. Intel, which bought security company McAfee in 2011, warned that if MGT went ahead with its plans for a name change, it will take legal action to protect its trademark rights.

It said that the use of the McAfee name would create confusion as to the origin of its products and suggest some affiliation with Intel and John McAfee, which does not exist.

John McAfee and MGT have meanwhile filed a suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, asking the court for a judgment declaring that “their use of or reference to the personal name of John McAfee and/or McAfee in their business,” particularly in the renaming of MGT, does not infringe on Intel’s trademark rights or breach any agreement between the parties.

John McAfee states in the filing that he entered in 1991 into an agreement with McAfee Associates to transfer certain assets to it in exchange of stock and a promissory note, but at no point did he “assign the rights to his personal name, via assignment of trademark or otherwise, or agree to restrict his right to do business using his own name”.

He has a point. The trademark database of the US Patent and Trademark Office show eight marks involving the word McAfee in conjunction with computers. But none refer to John McAfee, who claims that Intel “never consulted, requested or otherwise obtained the permission of McAfee to use his last name as part of Defendants’ Marks on its products,” according to the filing.  Instead he said he only signed over the name McAfee Anti-virus.

 

 

Last modified on 08 September 2016
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