Trademark flap prompts Intel to rename Tanglewood

Intel Corp. has changed the code name of its Tanglewood multicore Itanium 2 processor to avoid possible confusion with a music festival in the Massachusetts Berkshire Mountains.

Tanglewood, the follow-up to Intel's dual-core Montecito processor, will now be known as Tukwila, a name taken from a town located 12 miles south of Seattle. Tukwila is a word from the Duwamish Native American tribe meaning "land where the hazelnuts grow," according to the town's Web site.

The Tukwila name was chosen several weeks ago, when Intel executives were made aware of the conflict between their Tanglewood code name and the Boston Symphony Orchestra's annual Tanglewood music festival.

"Apparently, the Tanglewood people had problems with Intel's use of their trademark," said Nathan Brookwood, a principal analyst with the Insight64 research firm in Saratoga, California.

Even though code names are not typically used for marketing purposes, they have been the subject of disputes in the past. In 1993, Apple Computer Inc. code named its Power Macintosh 7100 computer, "Carl Sagan." After Sagan objected, the name was changed to BHA, which was taken to stand for "butt-headed astronomer." Sagan took exception to the BHA name and sued Apple for defamation in April of 1994. The suit was settled out of court a year later.

Tukwila is expected to have eight processor cores and about seven times the performance of Intel's current Itanium 2 processors. It is being developed by a group of former Alpha processor developers who moved to Intel as part of a 2001 agreement with Compaq Computer Corp.

The processor will ship sometime after 2005, according to Intel.