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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.'"
However, a trademark application for the name was not filed until May - when rumours about Microsoft's new product had already spread widely across the internet.
Microsoft, meanwhile, filed its own trademark applications for the name in March - for a variety of uses, including search engine software, interface software, advertising, telecoms and for "providing a website and website links to geographic information, map images and trip routing".
Aren't you obliged to protect your mark? Seems to me they have nothing on MS.
"...a trademark application for the name was not filed [by the plaintiff] until May - when rumours about Microsoft's new product had already spread widely across the internet."
"Microsoft, meanwhile, filed its own trademark applications for the name in March - for a variety of uses, including search engine software, interface software, advertising, telecoms and for 'providing a website and website links to geographic information, map images and trip routing'."
Says it all really. This company didn't even bother trying to establish trademark rights until two months after Microsoft, after news of the new engine had leaked. This screams trademark troll.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
What makes you think the lawyer wants anything but a big check and free advertising for the company?
Hmm. Microsoft got bing.com a while ago
WHOIS results for bing.com
Created on..............: 1996-01-28.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but surely all that means is someone registered it in 1996. It may have changed hands several times before being taken over by Microsoft.
If a business or trademark name is "deceptively or intentionally similar" to an established entity, it is technically in violation by definition.
The thing is that nobody had heard about Bing before MS. As such, MS wasn't trying to benefit from the fame that the name already had. If they began manufacturing footwear and chose Nike for their productname, I could see the motivation: Appearing to relate to an established entity in order to sell more. But creating a search engine called "Bing"? I don't think any of us had the first reaction of "Ah, like that Bing Information Designers?" but we all thought "Ah, what a stupid name. :D"
I'm not saying that MS didn't know of the company. They certainly should have researched more. But I can't understand why would they intentionally choose something deceptively similar to something that nobody had never heard of before. While MS knows that they can face anyone in court, I would assume their sizeable legal team had forced them to adopt strict and heavy processes to avoid this kind of stuff. To me this seems more like a fuckup committed by some very low level employees than anything decided by high management.