A Setback For Microsoft In Lindows Trademark Case

One Louder writes "Lindows.com is claiming victory in an important ruling in the Microsoft case - the judge ruled that the jury must only consider the genericness of the term 'windows' prior to the introduction of Microsoft's products, and that a term that is generic cannot be made ungeneric. Of course, in Microsoft's home turf, the story has a different spin. In other countries, they're telling judges that Lindows.com is an imminent threat requiring immediate injunctions, while in the United States, they're dragging the case out, perhaps for years, by appealing issues in a trial that hasn't even happened."

Comments

Re:In other countries...

[JanneM]

I can't speak for other languages, but in Sweden, at least, we translate it. Where you have a "window" with a "button", we have a "fonster" with a "knapp".

So, yes, "Windows" really is a non-word, and it rightly becomes a big, relevant problem for Lindows.

To turn it around, assume a product (a window cleaning agent, say) from Sweden named, exotically, "Fonster". Then some other company releases _their window cleaning compound and names it "Fonsder". Would it not be reasonable - and quite easy - for an american court to find that "Fonsder" was unacceptably close to "Fonster" and that they did attempt to ride on the coattails of the first company's brand penetration?