John McAfee to Intel: Give me back my name!

Intel blocks McAfee from calling his new business John McAfee

John McAfee, the anti-virus software pioneer and an entrepreneur so colourful he makes Larry Ellison look dull, has challenged Intel over the rights to his surname.

The chip-maker acquired McAfee in 2010, after it had been passed from pillar to post following its merger with Network Associates in 1997, three years after McAfee left the company. Intel acquired the company in a bid to extend its services into security, a strategic shift it is now reversing.

McAfee, meanwhile, spent much of the intervening 20-plus years acquiring a reputation as an errant playboy and even spent some time on the run - until Vice, an ironically named magazine in the circumstances, exposed where he was hiding.

After Intel bought McAfee in 2010, the unit was renamed Intel Security, although the McAfee brand name was retained. But now Intel is considering a sale of the division, McAfee wants his name back so that he can rename his investment outfit, MGT Capital Investments Inc, as John McAfee Global Technologies.

Accordingly, McAfee has "begged" Intel for the right to use his name since 2014, suggest some reports, but he has been met with nothing but refusals.

Now he is reportedly suing the company to get his name back, according to VentureBeat. The report said that Intel sent McAfee a cease-and-desist letter demanding that he stop using the McAfee name three months ago and was pretty direct about its demands.

"As you surely are aware, Intel (under its Intel Security division) uses the McAfee trademark in connection with its portfolio of antivirus and other security solutions and services," said the letter.

"Any use of the McAfee name in connection with your company and its provision of D-Vasive's anti-spy software or other security solutions would surely be likely to confuse customers as to the source of your company's products, and/or suggest some affiliation or relationship with McAfee or Intel that does not exist."