Jeremy Malcolm, the Perth-based lawyer who sent the letter out late last month, told ZDNet Australia more than 10 percent of the 90-odd organisations which received the letter had signed and returned the statutory declaration attached.
Describing the response as "mostly favourable", Malcolm noted while the numbers might not sound very large, in actual fact he hadn't expected any more.
"Not all of the recipients were using Linux as part of their business of product/service names," he said, adding that one of the purposes of sending the letter out in the first place was to discern which organisations might use the name for commercial gain.
The nation's peak Linux body Linux Australia, which along with the Torvalds-created Linux Mark Institute (LMI) contracted Malcolm for the task, agreed with the lawyer's sentiments.
"The letter wasn't relevant to the majority of people who received it," said the body's president Jonathan Oxer.
Oxer was confident the response would help Linux Australia and the LMI secure Australian rights to the Linux trademark.
He very successfully defended Joey McNichols from a lawsuit put forth by spammer Wayne Mansfield when Joey's spam complaints got Mansfield booted by his Internet provider, claiming that his complaints were libelous. Good on ya, Jeremy!