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Red Hat Founder Offers Help in Apple vs.Tiger Lawsuit
Art Vanderlay writes "Robert F. Young, a founder of Linux distributor Red Hat and now owner
of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats
Canadian football team, has offered Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs a
quick way out of a lawsuit by TigerDirect over the latest version of
Tiger. According to the Globe and Mail, Mr. Young
has offered to license the Hamilton Tiger-Cats' historical use of the
word Tiger to Apple free of charge. The Hamilton Tiger-Cats have
been around since 1869. '136 years ago we were called The Tigers,' Mr.
Young said. 'If anyone owns the exclusive rights to the word tiger
with that much history and tradition, it's gotta be us.'"
Trademark is generally only relevant for trade done in a specific domain - so usage of Tiger for a football franchise won't disallow another company to use football as a software reseller.
Where Apple potentially gets in trouble is that there is a company that is a software reseller that is doing business under the trademark of Tiger. Whether Apples line of business and Tiger Direct are closely enough related that the courts would disallow Apples usage of the trademark is unclear.
LetterRip
Has anyone tracked down this mysterious registration, or is TigerDirect merely claiming that their use of the mark precedes Apple's?
c fhosb.2.21.
Actually it is TigerDirect's parent company Systemax that has the trademark registered, see here:
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
In fact, Apple got in trouble in the 70s when they first used the word and had to agree that Apple (computer company) would not get into the business of Apple ( music company). Of course, Apple (music company) cried foul recently over iTunes....
So, you can see cross-industry trademarks DO have to be negotiated.
Thanks for the link.
I took the liberty of noting that TD's mark is for: Mail order catalog services featuring computers and computer related products; and Retail store services featuring computers and computer related products.
Now, to pick a random operating system, the MS Windows trademark is for: G & S: computers and components therefor, computer peripherals, and computer programs in the field of graphical applications, and manuals therefor sold as a unit.
Interesting how they expect the Tiger OS to conflict with the mail-order business.
This is a bit offtopic, but I'd advise everyone to avoid doing business with TigerDirect. I ordered the parts for my current computer from them and a great number of them didn't work properly. Worse, most of the warranties are "in-kind;" i.e. "Your RAM doesn't work? That's okay, send it back and we'll send you more RAM that doesn't work."
I also had to go out and buy a USB mouse because if I plug in devices in both PS/2 ports the computer won't boot properly, and the SATA hard drive I bought from them worked for all of two days before breaking.
None of these are compatibility issues, by the way; I replaced the defective Tiger parts with the same brand parts from a reputable local store (where they were more expensive) and the computer worked. The reason Tiger's prices are so low is that they sell factory seconds, meaning parts which didn't pass the company's quality inspection, so most of the stuff you buy from TigerDirect is non-functioning.
I used to read Caltizzle. I was a lot cooler than you.
It's not possible to Google bomb on Slashdot - all comments have rel="nofollow" added. Thanks for playing, though.