Questions over the Windows Trademark

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? :)

Comments

There is precedence for losing the Windows name

[Fair Use Guy]

Microsoft has neglected to defend their trademark through the years, and an undefended trademark (like NiCad, Kleenex, or Trojan) quickly slips into the public domain by default. Consider the following knockoff operating systems that have used Microsoft's trademark since the 1980s:

• OpenWindows from Sun
• X-Windows from MIT
• Window Maker from Alfredo Kojima
• Allowing vendors to suffix their product names with "for Windows" for many, many years
• Allowing vendors to prefix their product names with "Win" for many, many years
• Mac OS, a blatant ripoff of Windows

The evidence is very much in Lindows' favor in this case: the term "Windows" in the computer field has completely fallen into the public domain and in the year 2002 it is a common noun, not a proper noun.

/fug

Who cares?

[mcrbids]

Lindows is one of those "wannabes". It's not a distro I, a Linux user, would want to use. It's not something that a Windows Gamer would want to use, either.

So what is its core market?

I just don't see one, and Lindows will disappear all on its own.