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Questions over the Windows Trademark

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the seizing-control-of-the-english-language dept.

TTop writes "As part of the Lindows lawsuit, the judge has preliminarily ruled that there are 'serious questions regarding whether "Windows" is a non-generic name and thus eligible for the protections of federal trademark law.'" I've always been bothered by Microsoft's habit of naming things using common words (Then again, my history of naming things includes confusing and bizarre names like 'Slashdot' and 'AnimeFu' so what do I know? :)

3 of 382 comments (clear)

  1. little guy can win these things... by President+Chimp+Toe · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There was a similar court case in the UK recently.

    McDonalds took Yu Kwan Yuen, a chinese retaurant owner to court for naming his restaurant "McChina". The judge was quite correct in ruling that McDonalds could not monopolise the prefix "Mc". It means "son of" in scottish, and Yuen had been living in scotland for some time and adopted "McChina" to indicate "Son of China".

    But would he have named his restaurant McChina if McDonalds didnt exist?

    This is a similar case to the Lindows situation. Although they are deriving their name from a generic source, they are (to some extent) stepping on somebody else's turf. I'm not sure what the right answer is, but certainly in the McChina case I think it wsa the correct outcome.

  2. Trademarks and "Slashdot" and "Windows" by Seth+Finkelstein · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Naming something Slashdot was a good idea -at least in terms of trademark law!

    However, naming something Windows was a bad idea (again, for trademark law)

    Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

  3. Microsoft product names. by PrimeNumber · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Microsoft started using using common generic names after hiring a marketing suit named Rowland Hanson whose previous experience had been with Neutrogena.

    Word & Chart, were the first to be name generically. What isnt commonly known is that Gates had to be argued and cajoled into using Windows, he wanted to call it "Interface Manager"

    Incidentally, Hanson was among the first to throw software samples into magazines (freebie demo disks). Given his past experience, it was a small leap from throwing perfume samples in Cosmo, to program samples in PC Week.

    My $0.02