"Oh, thanks for the easy one. Now could you please name JUST ONE product or service, which "Microsoft" stands greater-than-zero chances becoming a generic name for?"
Apparently, according to MS lawyers the use of MikeRoweSoft.com was. Again, it matters not what you or I think, the legal experts think so. You can aruge till you're blue in the face about what *you* think, the fact is that the people that matter feel it is so and no amount of anti-MS ranting is going to change the fact that a company can lose a trademark if they do not vigorously defend it. Please see my earlier references to this effect. I notice you did not dispute the case history but instead chose you use your prodigious 'reasoning' powers to yet again blather another MS rant.
...to become adept at explaining things to and persuading intellectually challenged as well.
"it becomes generic name for a product or service" is what the MS lawyers are concerned with. It doesn't matter what you and your finely tuned 'reasoning' skills think.
I appreciate you doing all the legwork for proving my point, saves me a ton of time. You gonna keep looking up stuff that proves you wrong?
Your MS antipathy seriously clouds your judgement.
Your continued attempt to personalize this debate are pathetic. Continue giving it a shot at explaining to poor, little non-reasoning me. I enjoy watching a person who is so ate up with hatred flounder about.
Look dickhead, in my first reply I quoted a legal scholar's learned opinion on the subject. If that isn't enough for you then nothing I do can make you realize that you don't know what the fuck you are talking about.
When you can refute that quote with something other than an irrelevant, ambigious link from an online encyclopedia written by anyone (and everyone) then I will respond. If you cannot do such a basic thing, you get ignored.
"A trademark is protected when the law allows the mark owner to stop competitors from infringement by these confusingly similar marks."
You really should learn to view matters from all sides, your anti-MS stance is clouding your judgement.
Your attempt to personalize the debate by inquiring about my employment status is rather pathetic. I think you are projecting. BTW, I am happily employed in a great job for a company I like, making more money than I could have dreamed of. My wife is a hottie and I have two kids who are well-adjusted and likely will not turn into a ranting, raving, anti-everything who was overly influenced by his (her?) leftist professors.
Now go away and come back when you can come up with something better than a lame-ass wiki link that does more to prove my point than your own.
Look, you are an arrogant prick as evidenced by your comment that "It is now my mission to fight stupidity on Slashdot."
I called you out on this and hurt your overinflated ego in the process. Don't start acting like a hurt puppy and try to get pity. You can act like a psychobitch or something elsewhere 'cause I don't have the time to play your games.
Microsoft acted to protect their trademark, any other interpretation such as "MS Sucks and they're just a bunch of meanies" is immature and show a limited understanding of the business world.
Silly me, what was I thinking when I trusted to learned opinions of the world's best legal scholars. I should have been consulting with danila, who assures me that it is COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE to lose a trademark. Perhaps you could quote same case law, precedents?
Go back to your server room and philosophise to the ops monkeys there.
Does anyone here understand that if a company does not actively protect it's trademarks and tradenames then it can actually lose the legal right to them?
"Once established, a trademark must be "policed" to maintain rights. If you allow your mark to become synonymous with others' goods or services, you run the risk that your trademark rights will be lost because the name may be deemed to have become "generic" and, thereby no longer identifies a source, but a good or service available from several sources."
Think about how the word "Kleenex" is used and imagine Microsoft losing the rights to their own name by not protecting it. I know this sounds hunky dory to most of you but now imagine a society where companies cannot protect their investments so they don't bother taking the risk to start a business. Now imagine those now non-existant companies not having hired you. You get the picture?
Yes, I think the MS lawyers were assholes but they were merely following established legal principles that dictate that if they cannot prove that they vigorously defended their trademarks they might not own them long.
In the end, MS defends their marks, the kid gets something and./'ers are given something to be angry about.
Not only does it rock on./ but it rocks in New Hampshire. It rocks in South Carolina and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico, and it rocks in California and Texas and New York. And it rocks in South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan. And then it rocks in Washington, D.C. but not enough to take back the White House.
Much has been written about the comparison of Bill G. and JD Rockefeller, another man who happened to be in the right place at the time society was changing and laws had not sufficiently been developed to handle the issues of the day. His use of corporation and trusts were merely an exploitation of the lack of laws. MS has done the same thing and just as balance was restored at the start of the last century, so too will it be for MS.
If I weren't such a lazy poster I would have explained the significance of my remark. If you weren't a lazy person you would read the book and find out what I meant.
The good part is that we both limit our stress by being somewhat lazy.
I'm not sure if others got it, but as a consultant for I have heard this (comical) circular argument too many times being played out between Microsoft and IBM.
I don't give a rat's ass what some revisionist historian believes. The guys who wrote the damn thing is who I care about, not some tweedy Stalinst pusnuts at Berkeley.
People who smoke tobacco pay higher insurance rates, it should be the same with other drugs.
So you would allow them to test you for THC annually for your insurance?
Look, I am not as against this as you may think I am. Consider me mildly annoyed that I sometimes bear the burden of the actions of others. This may kill your desire to engage me in adversarial argument but I'm just not in the arguing mood today.
Ahhh, the old "Constitution as a living document" argument. In other words you don't like what it says so it needs to be altered. For that to happen it needs to be thought of as "living". How cute.
You may think that the ability to change the government is not a valid reason but a few people I know agree with me. Maybe you've heard of the:
Thomas Jefferson
"The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that . . . it is their right and duty to be at all times armed."
-- Letter to John Cartwright, 1824.
(The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Memorial Edition (ME), Lipscomb and Bergh, editors, 20 Vols., Washington, D.C., 1903-04, 16:45.
George Mason
'Disarming the people is the best way to enslave them.'"
Patrick Henry
"Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms under our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"
Alexander Hamilton
"... but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights..."
Now I know these guys pale in comparison to the awesome mind of "stewby18" on Slashdot, but do take a second and consider their words.
So, if it's that bad, how come no-one's exercising their Second Ammendment rights?
Because it is just a small number of people screaming loudly. The media also acts as a biased, unnatural amplifier of these types. The truth is that the vast majority of Americans are quite happy with their lives, despite the fact that the propagandists try to convince them otherwise.
Isn't it great though that we all get to voice our opinion? I would not have it any other way.
Slashdot Mirror
Apparently, according to MS lawyers the use of MikeRoweSoft.com was. Again, it matters not what you or I think, the legal experts think so. You can aruge till you're blue in the face about what *you* think, the fact is that the people that matter feel it is so and no amount of anti-MS ranting is going to change the fact that a company can lose a trademark if they do not vigorously defend it. Please see my earlier references to this effect. I notice you did not dispute the case history but instead chose you use your prodigious 'reasoning' powers to yet again blather another MS rant.
Blah, blah, blah....whatever Mr. Ego
I appreciate you doing all the legwork for proving my point, saves me a ton of time. You gonna keep looking up stuff that proves you wrong?
Your MS antipathy seriously clouds your judgement.
Your continued attempt to personalize this debate are pathetic. Continue giving it a shot at explaining to poor, little non-reasoning me. I enjoy watching a person who is so ate up with hatred flounder about.
http://www.dykaslaw.com/tradefaq.html
http://www.lawguru.com/faq/20.23.html
http://www.whitecase.com/article_unique_product_ch ernichaw_12_2003.html
Please note that these links are from legal resource pages, not some open-source encyclopedia and certainly not the opinion of some random ./'er.
When you can refute that quote with something other than an irrelevant, ambigious link from an online encyclopedia written by anyone (and everyone) then I will respond. If you cannot do such a basic thing, you get ignored.
"A trademark is protected when the law allows the mark owner to stop competitors from infringement by these confusingly similar marks."
You really should learn to view matters from all sides, your anti-MS stance is clouding your judgement.
Your attempt to personalize the debate by inquiring about my employment status is rather pathetic. I think you are projecting. BTW, I am happily employed in a great job for a company I like, making more money than I could have dreamed of. My wife is a hottie and I have two kids who are well-adjusted and likely will not turn into a ranting, raving, anti-everything who was overly influenced by his (her?) leftist professors.
Now go away and come back when you can come up with something better than a lame-ass wiki link that does more to prove my point than your own.
Slavery in India
Manager? Hardly.
I called you out on this and hurt your overinflated ego in the process. Don't start acting like a hurt puppy and try to get pity. You can act like a psychobitch or something elsewhere 'cause I don't have the time to play your games.
Microsoft acted to protect their trademark, any other interpretation such as "MS Sucks and they're just a bunch of meanies" is immature and show a limited understanding of the business world.
Go back to your server room and philosophise to the ops monkeys there.
"Once established, a trademark must be "policed" to maintain rights. If you allow your mark to become synonymous with others' goods or services, you run the risk that your trademark rights will be lost because the name may be deemed to have become "generic" and, thereby no longer identifies a source, but a good or service available from several sources."
--http://www.mit.edu:8001/activities/e-club/8.html
Think about how the word "Kleenex" is used and imagine Microsoft losing the rights to their own name by not protecting it. I know this sounds hunky dory to most of you but now imagine a society where companies cannot protect their investments so they don't bother taking the risk to start a business. Now imagine those now non-existant companies not having hired you. You get the picture?
Yes, I think the MS lawyers were assholes but they were merely following established legal principles that dictate that if they cannot prove that they vigorously defended their trademarks they might not own them long.
In the end, MS defends their marks, the kid gets something and ./'ers are given something to be angry about.
Not only does it rock on ./ but it rocks in New Hampshire. It rocks in South Carolina and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico, and it rocks in California and Texas and New York. And it rocks in South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan. And then it rocks in Washington, D.C. but not enough to take back the White House.
Yeaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!
All your rhizomes are belong to us.
Much has been written about the comparison of Bill G. and JD Rockefeller, another man who happened to be in the right place at the time society was changing and laws had not sufficiently been developed to handle the issues of the day. His use of corporation and trusts were merely an exploitation of the lack of laws. MS has done the same thing and just as balance was restored at the start of the last century, so too will it be for MS.
If I weren't such a lazy poster I would have explained the significance of my remark. If you weren't a lazy person you would read the book and find out what I meant.
The good part is that we both limit our stress by being somewhat lazy.
.
I'm not sure if others got it, but as a consultant for I have heard this (comical) circular argument too many times being played out between Microsoft and IBM.
You're new here aren't you?
I take it then that you have not read "The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization" by Thomas Friedman?
myth
I don't give a rat's ass what some revisionist historian believes. The guys who wrote the damn thing is who I care about, not some tweedy Stalinst pusnuts at Berkeley.
So you would allow them to test you for THC annually for your insurance?
Look, I am not as against this as you may think I am. Consider me mildly annoyed that I sometimes bear the burden of the actions of others. This may kill your desire to engage me in adversarial argument but I'm just not in the arguing mood today.
--Unknown
You may think that the ability to change the government is not a valid reason but a few people I know agree with me. Maybe you've heard of the:
Thomas Jefferson
"The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that . . . it is their right and duty to be at all times armed."
-- Letter to John Cartwright, 1824.
(The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Memorial Edition (ME), Lipscomb and Bergh, editors, 20 Vols., Washington, D.C., 1903-04, 16:45.
George Mason
'Disarming the people is the best way to enslave them.'"
Patrick Henry
"Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms under our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"
Alexander Hamilton
"... but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights..."
Now I know these guys pale in comparison to the awesome mind of "stewby18" on Slashdot, but do take a second and consider their words.
And apprently the brain.
Because it is just a small number of people screaming loudly. The media also acts as a biased, unnatural amplifier of these types. The truth is that the vast majority of Americans are quite happy with their lives, despite the fact that the propagandists try to convince them otherwise.
Isn't it great though that we all get to voice our opinion? I would not have it any other way.