Apple Sued Over Rendezvous Trademark

bdsesq writes "The Register is reporting that Tibco is suing Apple over the name 'Rendezvous'. Tibco has owned the name since 1994. It seems that Apple doesn't want to pay what Tibco wants."

Comments

Rendezvous?

[Alex Thorpe]

So can a company trademark single words in a foreign language? What do the French think of this? I'd think it'd be like trademarking a word such as "travel".

Re:Rendezvous?

[RazzleFrog]

That's wrong. Microsoft lost the case because the phrase windows was already a common term in user interfaces BEFORE Microsoft received their trademark. It is similar to prior art with patents. You are very much allowed to trademark ordinary words. By it's very definition - "A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol or design, or a combination of words, phrases, symbols or designs, that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others (source: USPTO.

No confusion

[Anonymous Coward]

A major point of debate in trademark disagreements is confusion. Will Apple's use of Rendezvous be confusing to people who are familiar with TIBCO's use of Rendezvous? The answer is clearly no: TIBCO's Rendezvous is a messaging solution that's part of their enterprise blah-blah-ware system. Apple's Rendezvous is a network configuration and service advertisement technology. The only thing they have in common, and I mean this quite literally, is that they both involve computers.

No case. Five gets you ten the case never goes to court.

Simple solution

[McAddress]

Just rename it iRendezvous.

Correction

[Curt]

Tibco has owned the name since 1994. It seems that Apple doesn't want to pay what Tibco wants."

Actually, that should read Tibico claims to have been using the name since 1994. Not owns. It is not a registered trademark, they merely applied for it. The process is not complete. In fact, they only filed for it May 21, 2003.

Tibico's Rendezvous

Apple filed for the name Rendezvous on May 6, 2002.

Apple's Rendezvous

Do I think this will really be a problem for Apple? No more than OS-9 and Mac OS 9.... at least those were both Operating Systems, in some sense.

Re:Humph... seems obvious

[Frightened_Turtle]

"...but it does possess messaging components via iChat..."

Actually, this is a little inaccurate. Rendezvous does not have messaging components. Nor does Rendezvous use iChat for messaging.

Rather, it is iChat that uses Rendezvous services to discover who is on the network, and then lists those people accordingly. In a very basic summation, all Rendezvous does is check out a network and see what is available for networking, and then makes that information available for other programs to use.

If Rendezvous does have user-to-user messaging capabilities built into it, then I would agree that Tibco has a case. Nonetheless, even if Tibco didn't want to, they would still be required to sue Apple based on current copyright/trademark laws. They must defend their trademark and demonstrate efforts of having done so. Not doing so invalidates their trademark and makes it available for everyone to use. (This is why you see McDonald's suing some small restaurant now and then over the "McDonald's name. They aren't trying to be mean, they have to do this or they lose their trademark.) Let's face it, if you're going to sue, you might as well ask for money. At the very least, it covers your legal fees if you win.

It will probably go to court, unless Tibco is doing this to get free money. Should it go to court, the finding will most likely be that Tibco's product is a messaging system like iChat, and not a network discovery service like Apple's product, and therefore there is no market overlap between the two products. Thereby, there is no trademark infringement.

At the very least, this is free press for Tibco -- this is the first time I ever heard of them.