Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
I don't know whether that will be a whole lot of help, as service and trade marks are limited to being in respect of some specific area of trade/ practice, and I don't see a whole lot of overlap between sports teams and computer software.
If someone were looking for prior art, I think William Blake (1757-1827) got there before a Canadian football team:
The Tyger
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what the shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Humorous signatures are over-rated.
While the "free" license is a good gesture, it's also indirectly implying that Apple needs approval from other entities to trade, and that's the risk that shouldn't be ignored.
What if this Tiger-Cats is bought by another business?
And not to mention TigerDirect is more or less in the same trade (which determines the trademark's validity) as Apple, and sports is not yet computer hardware-related until robots start playing.
If Apple wants to trade as 'Apple' exclusively in computer hardware, then it must be prepared that TigerDirect wants to trade as 'Tiger' exclusively.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
The retailer has owned trademarks on Tiger, TigerDirect and TigerSoftware since 1996.
Last time we discussed this, the general conclusion is that TigerDirect had *registered* trademarks on all of these *except* "Tiger". Apple, OTOH, has a registered trademark on the term "Tiger". Has anyone tracked down this mysterious registration, or is TigerDirect merely claiming that their use of the mark precedes Apple's? (As I understand it, trademarks are not required to be registered. However, it can be very difficult to prove the usage of a common mark without it.)
Honestly, I think TigerDirect is entitled to nothing more than "TigerDirect" and its derivitives. I have never seen them referred to as simply "Tiger", and I find nothing confusing about a product name vs. a company name. IMHO, TD has a long road ahead of them if they want to prove that Apple is misusing their mark. And what does TD really think they're going to get out of it anyway? The cost of the suit will drain their company dry before they ever see even a meger return. Perhaps they think Apple will settle?
TigerDirect's contention is that Apple's use of the word "tiger" has knocked the retailer from the top of search results on Google, Yahoo and MSN.
What a bunch of poppycock. If you do a search for "Tiger Direct" or "Tiger Computers" on Google, you get Tiger Direct. Even if you search for "Tiger", you still get Tiger Direct before Apple. But just because they happen to come up on a search for "Tiger" does not give them the right to claim the use of that mark.
Mr. Young is also currently CEO of Lulu.com, which provides independent publishers with free access to on-demand publishing tools for books, e-books, music, images and calendars.
Watch out for that website. It's a real Lulu! (insert groaning here)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Trademarking of common words is just... stupid.
You can't have these kind of issues with a made-up name like Coca-Cola, right?
Apple, Tiger, Windows, whats next? Imagination isn't a prerequisite anymore in marketing, it seems.
Eureka Science News - automatically updated
change the name to Liger!
"Mind over matter: If you don't mind, then it doesn't matter"
-1, Redundant.
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
I want an exclusive trademark on the word "the". Sounds like a good name for my company. Any other company that tries to use that name will have to pay me money :-P
--LWM
Nothing more.
While Tiger Direct has a (if somewhat sleazy) case, there's little confusion between a football team and computer sw. This is just Red Hat attempting to cash in on the PR surrounding this while looking like a good guy.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
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
Ofcourse the same can be applied to a law suit against Tiger-direct(a retailer) against apple for the use in OS X Tiger(An operating system).
.Even if they are succesfull(I highly doubt they will be) they risk a counter suit from a lot of other places.
Tiger-direct is their name not Tiger , What about Tiger games(LCD games).
The problem here is Tiger is a fairly commen word. Tiger-direct have no hope here and are just going to waste money
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
if such companies are so eager to preserve a stupid trademark, why don't they do something to preserve their symbol: the tiger? He's in the brink of extinction, ya know?
I don't feel like it...
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.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Reminds me of when Tiger Woods tried to stop a golf course from using its name "Tiger's Eye", which it was named way before Tiger Woods became Tiger Woods. He obviously lost, but he did manage to get Nike to remove all of it's products from the Pro Shop!
PtPete
Hell, Tigers have a longer history with the term, and I'd hate to meet their lawyer in court...
They're gggrreeaat! - Tony
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.
But they are successful!
:-).
It can't be a coincidence that about the time the lawsuit broke, I suddenly found Tiger Direct ads appearing on Slashdot. In fact, as I write this, there is one sitting happily on top of my screen. They are attempting to take advantage of the free publicity which was the true purpose of the suit.
You might be interested in the documents in the lawsuit. It doesn't strike me as a well-argued suit and I'm confident it will fail.
But a lot more people have heard of Tiger Direct now than then, and they might get some sympathy as the "underdog". Unfortunately about 90% of them are Mac users and Tiger doesn't deal with Macs at all. So I doubt it will be the windfall Tiger would like to see.
Of course the story we've responded to also has the same purpose. I laughed out loud when I read it, so it's okay by me. But this story was meant to provide publicity for the team and Bob Young.
And it has
D
Estoppel.
You can't sit there and watch someone for over a year call their product "Tiger" and then, 1 day before it goes on sale yell foul. Tiger direct knew about Tiger for well over a year - as we all did - and therefore, they cannot, because of estoppel.
The law states that you can't know about some "wrong doing" by someone and then conveniently use it against them long after you knew about the wrong doing. Its what (in theory) prevents a cop from simply following you around all day and then giving you 24 tickets when you get home.
(tangent: if you actually had someone following you around all day, you'd probably rack up well over 1 ticket per mile... did you change lanes more than one time per 200 feet? did you signal 100 feet prior to turning right? did you allow 3 seconds between you and the car ahead of you? Did you come to a full stop before turning right on red? Did you travel more than 200 feet in the suicide lane? Did you go more than 1 mile per hour faster than the allowed speed limit? Did you go slow enough in the rain?)
That would be like me annoucing on Dec 24th, 2006 that my company, Longhorn Computers, is suing Microsoft to cease and desist from sales of Windows Longhorn. I (and everyone else) knows that Microsoft has called it Longhorn for who know s how long... its unfair to last minute try to torpedo Microsoft.
google the word "estoppel" yourself, or go read up on it on groklaw.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Taking the initiative I want to google bomb Tiger direct by linking it to the name Butthead Vendor to Tiger Direct.
ANd here I'm linking Apple to Tiger and to Tiger Direct.
I urge you to join me in adding links. Put these in your sig for the next month so they are all over slashdot!
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.