Much ado about nothing. They admitedly lifted it from a comic strip. Outside of some sort of cease and desist order that you don't feel like spending money on, I'd just leave it alone.
The Comic Strip:
Al Capp's satirical, hillbilly comic strip "Li'l Abner" featured a fictional, remote factory called the "Skonk Works" where a "skonk oil" was brewed from skunks and old shoes.
- Lockheed's Project:
In 1943, Lockheed's chief engineer, Clarence "Kelly" Johnson, formed a special team to build America's first jet fighter, a project that required secrecy and speed.
- The Name:
Irv Culver, an engineer on the team, jokingly compared their smelly, makeshift digs to the "Skonk Works" from "Li'l Abner".
- Adoption:
The name "Skunk Works" stuck and became synonymous with Lockheed's secretive, high-performance projects, and later, with similar projects in other organizations.
- Beyond Lockheed:
The term "Skunk Works" has since been used to describe similar high-priority, confidential research and development projects in various industries.
