Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Sued Over Bing Trademark
mentus writes "Bing! Information Design, a design company from Missouri, is suing Microsoft over 'intentional interference' with their trademark and claiming Microsoft had knowledge of the trademark when it relaunched its rebranded search engine. Microsoft legal representative Kevin Kutz states that he believes the case will be dismissed and that Microsoft 'always respect[s] trademarks and other people's intellectual property, and look[s] forward to the next steps in the judicial process.'"
If Bing! can demonstrate prior art and public use of the trademark, they could potentially have some clout in court provided they have sufficiently deep pockets to sustain a few rounds of legal wrestling with Microsoft. If a business or trademark name is "deceptively or intentionally similar" to an established entity, it is technically in violation by definition.
I am unsure if it is a matter of how famous the company is or how large they are.
I think it is a matter of: even in whatever city they are in, now when they even do something like put something in the classifieds or whatever they do, it will say Bing and people will directly think of Microsoft's Bing.
I could see that hurting business.
The world is how you make it
But then again, Sony sued Sonny's Restaurant in Boston (I think), because people were pronouncing it 'so-nee'. Sony won.
Ok, this might only relate tangentially to the story but I still think it's funny in a flat cat kinda' way.
I drank what? -- Socrates
>who eventually sold the Lindows trademark to Microsoft for $20 million.
How horrible. 20 million!
Sigh, I love how /. is anti IP until it involves MS, then its all "WE MUST PROTECT COPYRIGHT/TRADEMAKRS/PATENTS AT ALL COSTS."
I agree with everything except the "what a stupid name" part. When I first heard of that name for a search engine it gave me a case of the real LOLs. After all, naming it Bing Is Not Google (bing)? Hilarious! I would have thought more of the GNU crowd would by into a name like that...
Actually it is Microsoft's fault. They have a responsibility, as all companies do, to be sure that their company and product names are unique enough in whatever markets they choose to do business that they will not cause confusion.
If consumers are harmed by the confusing similarity of product names or company names, this is a cause of action. Microsoft should have conducted a thorough search before naming Bing to be sure it wouldn't cause confusion. Or if they really liked the name Bing, they should have contacted this fellow to see if they could buy the name from him.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
Unless you're talking about a different case it appears to be Sony Corp vs Sony's Restaurant. So it is the same name, although given that Sony Corp doesn't sell any food that I'm aware of I'm not sure why they got excited about it. http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-1331412.html
Naming your company after a common object is hardly stealing, I don't know where you would even have gotten that idea. You're not an Apple Records attorney, are you?
Am I alone thinking that if this company wins their suit maybe Microsoft would actually rename their search engine to something not as cringeworthy?
You're both alone and wrong. It's just a buggy, ad-ridden front end for the WolframAlpha search engine and serves as a distraction from what Microsoft Activist Icahn and his attack dogs started doing to Yahoo.
After re-branding Live Search as "Bing", to leave the baggage associated with the old name, they also struck a deal so that Bing is a front-end for Wolfram Alpha plus whatever Live Search might have had. So to get those results unmodified, you don't have to go through M$ filter, you can go straight to WolframAlpha skipping the middle man. Not at all difficult.
There are even meta-search engines that can cross-search both Google and Wolfram Alpha for you. For Firefox there is the Goofram add-on which lets you search both at the same time. If you're on Opera, Safari or Chromium, there are also search customization options there, too
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.