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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."
Windows is a trademark.
Lindows is a tradmark.
Completely different thing.
...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
/. "editors" put a negative spin on everything Microsoft does? If Red Hat were in a law suit to defend their most valuable brand name, would you expect them to lie down and play dead or fight it? Of course Microsoft (or any other company) is going to fight something like this. Given that the directors have a legal obligation to provide shareholder value, it could be argued it would be illegal for them not to put up a good fight!
Why must the
Read reviews of shopping cart software
Michael Robertson is delighted to get his product's name splashed across newspapers.
Regardless of the merits of the case, even if the guy loses, he probably wins.
The ruling can be accessed through Lindows's page, right here
Read the yahoo article and the one posted at Seattlepi.com and the (mal)practices of our media shine through in the reporting of this ruling.
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
Anything windows-sounding is a tardmark.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
>> However, in the United States of America, Microsoft has never been able to trademark the term 'Windows' in any fashion.
Actually, both Microsoft and Windows are (R) registered trademarks of Microsoft within the United States. If you pull out your CD's you'll notice that both have an (R) by them...
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?
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Sure it can. Apple, Gateway, Dell, etc...
If that's the instructions given to the jury, then they can't possibly find for Microsoft.
The term "windows" - ignoring the obvious hole-in-a-wall - has been used since the WIMP interface (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointer) was developed at Xerox PARC in the 70s (commercially available in 1981). Later developments of that interface - the Apple Lisa in January 1983, Project Athena (which generated the first versons of X) was set up in May 1983, and based X upon the preexisting W window system, plus others - were around before Microsoft Windows was.
Microsoft Windows 1.0 was announced in November 1983, and released in 1985. At a rough count I reckon that there were at least 3 or 4 prior windowing systems using the phrase "windows" generically prior to that - and specifically using it in the same sense as Microsoft use it, not in any of the other ways that the term "windows" can be used generically.
Moral of the story; when naming products, make words up... you listening, Firefox?
Of course, in Microsoft's home turf, the story has a different spin.
Let me see if I understand this. You're comparing an article in the Seattle PI with a Lindows press release and you claim the PI is the biased one? I don't think you understand the purpose of a press release. Of the 3 elements here, you (submitter), PI article, Lindows press release, 2 of them appear biased. 1 of them is not the PI article.
I think you're confused about how trademark infringement works. A trademark is infringed if and only if it can be shown that the name would cause a consumer to confuse the two products. Just having a name that's reminiscent of the name of another company's product isn't automatically an infringement. (That's why if there's a car called a Mercury, and I want to call my software suite Mercury, I can do so: there's no risk that someone will mistakenly believe that my software suite is a product of the car company.) There is no way someone would confuse "Lindows" for "Microsoft Windows."
Common sense says that the underlying problem is that a trademark on "Windows" should never have been awarded to Microsoft in the first place. Lots of stupidity can be traced back to that decision.
It's not like the term "Windows" didn't have a generic use prior to it being turned into a trademark, nor can anyone sensibly claim that Microsoft was the first to use "windows" as a description for a way of displaying multiple applications on a computer screen simultaneously. Xerox PARC was using the term, and had a demonstrable windowing system, several years prior to MS first applying for the trademark.
As an aside, it's always struck me as strange that MS successfully patented "Windows", but no-one patented "mouse".
A sensible legal system would throw out the original "Windows" trademark as being invalid.