Intel worried about McAfee’s phone

It insists it owns his name

Intel is fuming that MGT Capital Investments went ahead with the announcement of the “John McAfee Privacy Phone” when it previously said that it did not plan to launch products and services under the McAfee mark.

For those who came in late MGT Capital Investments is owned by John McAfee who sold the trademark and which ended up in the claws of Chipzilla. Intel , which once claimed to own the letter i, is now insisting that McAfee can’t use his name on products.

The federal court had earlier refused John McAfee and MGT Capital a preliminary injunction until the resolution of the dispute on Intel’s transfer of marks and related assets containing the word McAfee as part of the spin-out.

MGT announced last month a privacy phone that will be “as hack proof as humanly possible,” with features such as a bank of switches on the back cover that will allow the user to physically disconnect the battery, the antennas for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and geolocation, the camera and microphone, and would also not allow the phone to connect to a Stingray or any other IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity) catcher device.

McAfee wants his phone in the shops by August and has referred to the phone largely as the Privacy Phone.

But in a sentence lower down in the statement on its website it refers to “the John McAfee privacy phone,” which appears to have raised Intel’s concerns about the naming of the phone. John McAfee also referred to “The John McAfee Privacy Phone, by MGT,” in a tweet last month.

Lawyers for Intel and McAfee have also objected to MGT asking for the depositions of McAfee’s CEO, Christopher Young, and Intel’s CEO, Brian Krzanich, “even though Plaintiffs can point to no relevant, unique information that these chief executives possess.”

The companies have moaned that MGT and John McAfee have not produced required documents for discovery and asked for a conference in connection with a motion for a protective order to prevent the “harassing depositions” of the chief executives and another motion to compel MGT and John McAfee to “complete their document production and provide substantive responses to interrogatories about their name change and planned products and services.”

John McAfee has said he had entered in 1991 into an agreement with McAfee Associates, a predecessor to McAfee Inc., to transfer certain assets to it in exchange for stock and a promissory note.

But the security expert has told the court that at no point in the agreement had he assigned the rights to his personal name through an assignment of trademark or otherwise, or agreed to restrict his right to do business using his own name. Like most things involving John McAfee this will run and run and give great copy.