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.

Comments

So I can start AppleSoftware then?

[D_Lehman(at)ISPAN.or]

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?