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Red Hat Founder Offers Help in Apple vs.Tiger Lawsuit

Posted by Zonk on from the fun-with-trademark-law dept.

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.'"

3 of 517 comments (clear)

  1. Young Doesn't understand trademark by LetterRip · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

  2. Re:From TFA by Holi · · Score: 5, Informative

    Has anyone tracked down this mysterious registration, or is TigerDirect merely claiming that their use of the mark precedes Apple's?

    Actually it is TigerDirect's parent company Systemax that has the trademark registered, see here:
    http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=c fhosb.2.21.

    --
    Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
  3. Actually Apple does have legal issues with Apple by Glasswire · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.