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Microsoft Sued Over Bing Trademark

Posted by Soulskill on from the trademark-trolls-abound dept.

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.'"

3 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. Re:But why would it be intentionally similar? by Stregano · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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
  2. Re:But why would it be intentionally similar? by Gilmoure · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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
  3. Re:But why would it be intentionally similar? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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...