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Apple Sued over Tiger, Injunction Sought
An anonymous reader writes "Online retailer Tiger Direct has reportedly sued Apple over the use of the Tiger name just one day before the Mac maker is scheduled to roll-out its next-generation Mac OS X 10.4 'Tiger' operating system, according to an article at AppleInsider. TigerDirect, which owns trademarks on the names Tiger, TigerDirect and TigerSoftware, has requested an injunction that could prevent Friday's launch of the Tiger OS. Tiger Direct is also seeking damages and legal fees. 'Apple Computer has created and launched a nationwide media blitz led by Steven Jobs, overwhelming the computer world with a sea of Tiger references,' Tiger Direct's attorneys wrote in the lawsuit." While the suit may have some merit, it is odd for them to wait until now to try and halt such a heralded product.
And given how litigious apple is being lately, it's hard to have sympathy for them in this.
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
I am a lawyer and I believe you reasoning is wrong.
First of all, the article posted says TigerDirect owns the trademark on the word "Tiger" and has so for many years. There is absolutely no possibility of Apple suing TigerDirect because they can show prior rights. This is not a case of "pre-emptive law suit" as the original poster said. That does not make sense.
TigerDirect is suing based on its prior trademark of the word Tiger. They are not claiming ownership over the search engine results, they are asserting that the search engine is evidence of the damage caused to them by the copyright infringement. Again, the search engine results are evidence, not property.
The case definately adds up because TigerDirect has a financial interest in its branding of the word Tiger and Apple's infringement of the word Tiger - for a profit - is causing them a loss of noteriety and thus damages their business.
This is important because mere copyright infringement will not result in a large award of damages without extensive proof of the damage incured. The search engine results offer an excellent way of doing so.
Good day to you.
-- "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." Jean Jacques Rousseau
On the contrary, I learned in school long about about trademark. I can no more create a computer company named AppleSoftware, which infringes on the trademark of Apple any more than Apple can create an OS named Tiger than infringes on the TigerSoftware name. They are in the same market. Now, if they were making something called the Tiger Lawn Mower (if something like that didn't already exist), that's a completely different story. If there is a Texas software company named Longhorn Software, they might not file suit until they were sure Microsoft was no just using an internal code name, but really naming their product. Maybe Tiger Direct isn't that naive, but is Apple really that naive as well to just go take names? Slashdot is bound and determined to kiss up to Apple's position here. Don't forget that Apple is pulling books off shelves *cough*nazis*cough*, sueing websites in the name of "intellectual property" and fighting to reveal journalistic sources. It is certainly fair play that Apple has to play by the rules. All that imagination for computer design, but they couldn't come up with a more original, and unused, name? Please, they were dumb enough to assume everything they do springs from the well of stuff-nobody-but-them-has-thought-of. Guess what, Apple... somebody already thought of it, so how about playing by the same rules as everyone else?
Cleaning the net one sed at a time! s/sex/sermons/; s/hot/holy/; s/goats/thebible/; www.holysermonswiththebible.com
Uh... sorry, did you express an opinion somewhere in there? All I saw was that sales pitch at the end for Apple's new OSX Tiger.
Well, Apple did keep it to an operating system. Oh, and advertising the operating system. What dorks we're becoming. Who owns the word Tiger? Who can? Lawyers are often blamed for this, but they're just working for jerkwater opportunists like TigerDirect. Hey, everybody! Any chance that the new operating system will be confused with a third-rate, fraudulent mail-order outfit? Or with the Blake poem?