What does MDC stand for?

Despite that distinction, attorneys are curious about what defense Apple may offer, noting that the case could become the most closely watched naming skirmish since 1989, when Mead Data Central -- owner of the Lexis legal database -- sued Toyota over its Lexus luxury brand.

Reed Elsevier acquired Lexis-Nexis, formerly known as Mead Data Central, for $1.

Craig Jolley, customer service manager for Mead Data Central, has his own list: 1) the user manual for his laptop, 2) extra telephone line (RJ-11), 3) telephone line connector, so he can connect two phone lines together if the jack is across the room from an outlet or table, 4) an extra connection cord for his PCMCIA modem card, since his laptop (NCR 3181) requires a special connection cord, and 5) an adapter.

The American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU) believes the administration also anticipated that its expansion of mosaic theory would be legally unenforceable, and therefore resorted to merely "suggesting' that commercial data vendors like Mead Data Central voluntarily control their data.

Prior to joining the firm, Neuhardt was vice president and general counsel for Mead Data Central, Inc.

Companies that had fought the case, including The New York Times, Time magazine and Mead Data Central, had argued that electronic databases are like anthologies that can be revised without the permission of individual copyright holders.

He has at his disposal all the traditional tools of marketing research as customer segment manager for Mead Data Central, the company that provides NEXIS, the online information retrieval service.

Prior to OneSource, he held sales management positions at World Merchandise Exchange, Gale Research (a subsidiary of Thomson Corporation), and Mead Data Central.