G3ckoG33k: Perhaps you're referring to Adrian Thompson's work on FGPAs. See http://considerthefuture.com/Computing/CompArticles/comp2_evolve.html for a 2001 article which was featured on Slashdot. Also check out http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/adrianth/ascot/paper/paper.html and http://www.informatics.sussex.ac.uk/users/adrianth/ices96/paper.ps for relevant papers by Thompson on FGPA-based evolution.

As others have said they don't need to register a trademark to enforce it. In any case Lucas owns multiple 'JEDI' trademarks (in addition to trademarks which contain the word 'JEDI'). LucasFilm trademarks for 'JEDI' include trademark 78488803 (registered 25 May 2010), 2595365 (registered 16 July 2002), 2823661 (registered 16 March 2004) and 2858244 (registered 29 June 2004).