Acorn Computers Ltd was a British computer company based in

Nottingham Nottingham ( , locally ) is a city and unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east of Sheffield and north-east of Birmingham. Nottingham has links to the legend of Robi ...

, England in the United Kingdom between 2006 and 2009. It licensed, in early 2006, the dormant

Acorn Computers Acorn Computers Ltd. was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the UK, including the Acorn Electron and the Acorn Archimedes. Acorn's ...

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from othe ...

from French company Aristide & Co Antiquaire De Marques.DRS Number 03682, Acorn Computers Limited and Roy Johnson, Nominet UK Dispute Resolution Service
an
Companies House WebCheck
/ref> This company sold

IBM PC compatible IBM PC compatible computers are similar to the original IBM Personal Computer, IBM PC, IBM Personal Computer XT, XT, and IBM Personal Computer/AT, AT, all from computer giant IBM, that are able to use the same software and expansion cards. Such ...

computers and had no connection to

ARM In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between th ...

, a spin-off from the original Acorn Computers.

Launch

In April 2006, internet news portals claimed that the Acorn company was to relaunch. The new company announced its range before the 2006 ''Computer Trade Show'', held at the

NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network soluti ...

near Birmingham, UK. At the show, the company distributed leaflets inviting people to "be part of one of the most exciting brand re-launches in UK history" by joining its reseller program.

Products

The company sold a range of

laptop computer A laptop, laptop computer, or notebook computer is a small, portable personal computer (PC) with a screen and alphanumeric keyboard. Laptops typically have a clam shell form factor with the screen mounted on the inside of the upper li ...

s. The systems used Microsoft Windows rather than the

RISC OS RISC OS is a computer operating system originally designed by Acorn Computers Ltd in Cambridge, England. First released in 1987, it was designed to run on the ARM chipset, which Acorn had designed concurrently for use in its new line of Archi ...

operating system developed by the original

and this incarnation of Acorn did not support or license any technologies or products of the original, apart from the name and trademark.Acorn Computers Limited – About
2007 The reuse of the Acorn Computers Ltd name caused an amount of confusion and controversy, particularly amongst users of the original company's products.

Domain dispute

On 24 July 2006, Nominet's Dispute Resolution Service ruled that the domain name should be transferred to the new Acorn from computer enthusiast Roy Johnson. The company made a complaint to the service contending that the "use of Acorn Computers' company name is illegal and has caused much confusion and continues to do so which is detrimental to cornand extremely misleading". Despite the fact that Johnson appeared to have been operating the website since at least 2001, five years before the new Acorn was registered as a company, Nominet ruled in favour of Acorn, as Johnson had not maintained an accurate record of his postal address, and mail to Johnson's registered address was returned by Royal Mail marked 'addressee has gone away'.

Demise

Acorn Computers Ltd failed to file any accounts at

Companies House Companies House is the executive agency of the company registrars of the United Kingdom, falling under the remit of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. All forms of companies (as permitted by the Companies Act) are in ...

, and so was struck off the limited companies registerLondon Gazette
/ref> and dissolved in December 2009.

References

External links

* (archive copy from 2008) {{coord missing, Nottinghamshire Manufacturing companies based in Nottingham Defunct computer companies of the United Kingdom Computer hardware companies Re-established companies Computer companies disestablished in 2009 Computer companies established in 2006 Defunct companies of England