Microsoft Starts Legal Fight Over Lindows Name

actappan writes: "Whether or not Lindows is real, this article on CNET News.com indicates that Microsoft intends to sue them into oblivion. Looks like supression remains the best way to promote innovation." cyberlawyer adds: "Some of you may remember that MS originally had great difficulty obtaining a trademark for the generic term 'Windows' but was eventually able to pay off those who had filed letters of protest to the granting of the mark including Sun, Oracle, and Borland. As a trademark lawyer I (unhappily) have to admit that Lindows probably has a weak case. Of course it's never too late to bring a cancellation action based on genericide ;-)" CodeWheeney contributes a link to coverage at Yahoo, too.

Comments

Re:Microsoft's Claim is Legit (IAAL)

[defunc]

Very well said. They have indeed spend many dollars in marketing that name and for someone to come in and piggyback on their name is, well, not fair. Let a database competitor that only run on Linux to come up with the name Loracle and see what Oracle does. MS has a solid case and I have no doubt they will prevail.

The guys there should have picked something like Winux. After all, it's running windows on linux. Not the other way round.

zoot-2.2.20-SMP

Re:To me it's fair

[grammar fascist]

The name is not "Windows" but "Lindows" which gives the impression that it's not Windows but somehow connected to Windows.

That's exactly the point behind the legislation, and I'll have to grudgingly agree with Microsoft on this thing. "Windows" is such a ubiquitous name, and "Lindows" is so phonetically close, that the only thing the Lindows people could be doing with a name like that is riding on their coattails, so to speak. (Whether or not they meant to is not an issue.) This lawsuit is exactly what trademark law is for.

Another issue is that Microsoft doesn't want the tech support calls for Lindows (and you know it would happen). Yet another is that people would automatically associate Windows with Lindows, and that's not something Microsoft wants either. Trademark law is also meant to protect against these two problems.

Whether or not "Windows" is a strong enough mark is a completely different issue. They've got the trademark, and, by law, they can protect it.

Re:Microsoft's Claim is Legit (IAAL)

[MrResistor]

I'm hoping the courts make the right decision and force Lindows into a name change.

The right decision would be to invalidate Microsoft's Windows trademark because it's a common word.

Panasonic, on the other hand, is not a common word, so that's a pretty stupid comparison, isn't it?

Re:idiots

[dangermouse]

Okay, so that means I'm not allowed to make any operating system component with a name ending in "indows"? This is almost as bad as McDonalds trademarking the "Mc" prefix. AAARRRRGGH!

No, this is more analagous to you opening up a fast-food hamburger chain called "McRonald's" with a clown named Donald McRonald for a mascot and a big golden "R" as your logo.

"indows" constitutes nearly every letter and sound in "[WL]indows", and the product is ridiculously similar by intent.

"I'm a completely original character, like Monald Muck, or Ricky Rouse!"

Frankly, this is silly.

[Nindalf]

Calling a windowed operating system "Windows" is like naming an automobile "Wheels." It's a generic descriptor, and managing to enforce it as a trademark suggests underhanded legal tactics (in particular scare tactics) against small challengers and generous settlements against large challengers. Either that, or clueless judges, or both.

Remember MS's defense over the Internet Explorer trademark suit? "Internet Explorer" is too general and vague to be a trademark. "Windows" is just the same. Ditto for "Office," "Word," "Access," "Visual BASIC," and any number of similar names used by MS (I have no idea which ones they claim as trademarks by themselves). You seem to be completely ignoring this aspect.

Now, if they were making something that sounded confusingly like "Microsoft Windows," MS would have an airtight case. However, MS should never have had a hope of holding "Windows" alone as a trademark, and that they do is a serious failure of the legal process.

Now, as a lawyer, you are certainly better qualified than I am to predict failures of the legal process; in some areas, I'm sure that common failures are more imporant than the letter of the law. I can't argue with you if you claim that MS will win this, but it is absurd for you to claim that they should win, that a court upholding their exclusive right within the industry to use a standard industry term as a name for the most visible component of their system would be fair and proper.

There should be no problem with having "IBM Windows," "Sun Windows," etc. let alone "Lindows."

Now, this last bit has nothing to do with current law, to the best of my knowledge, but I remember hearing a principle of trademarks that I really wish was law: all linguistic trademarks should consist of a proper noun followed by a descriptive term. Nobody should ever own marketing catchphrases, fictional character names, or descriptive terms as trademarks by themselves. (I don't recall the source)

Re:Innovation

[Zeinfeld]

There's nothing quite as innovative as an operating system with the sole goal of reimplementing APIs from other operating systems until it can run their binaries. :)

Let's see, first the guy founds MP3.com despite the fact he had nothing at all to do with the definition of the MP3 spec. Then they get into an amazin mess after they launch their BeamIT! service despite the obvious legal problems. Then they agree to a multi-million dollar settlement only to realize that they paid off the worng people, the ones who own the mechanical rights and not the performance performance rights...

This is not the type of person I would exactly want to tie my colours to...

Microsoft appear to me to have a very good case. The point is that they were the first company to come up with an Operating System called Windows. X11 is not an O/S. Lindows is trying to trade on the reputation that Microsoft has built up.

Beyond that however the guy is attempting to trade on the Open Source concept while developing something that will be closed source.

It all sounds so much like MP3, the business model is entirely clueless. Who do they expect to pay money for a sad copy of a Windows clone? It will always be at least one release behind the Microsoft article. Nobody is going to test software on an O/S with 0.1% market share or less. Windows is not just a set of APIs, it is also a kernel that has completely different semantics to the Linux kernel. The best you can hope for is something that works as well as the Windows NT POSIX mode - which is to say not well at all really.

It also sounds like MP3 in that the idea is to somehow make money by lowering a hook loaded with bait into a trendy scene where the basic premise is not to pay for anything. I suspect that the markets are not as happy with companies whose 'business plan' is less important to them than their 'exit strategy'.