RSSMicrosoft, Lindows End Trademark Spat
By David Worthington | Published July 20, 2004, 11:31 AM
Microsoft and Lindows.com jointly announced that they have reached a worldwide settlement that closes the books on the longstanding trademark infringement case between the two companies.
The exact terms of the settlement remain confidential, but a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing revealed that Microsoft paid twenty million USD for the Lindows domain. Lindows will continue its migration to the "Linspire" brand name, while Microsoft preserves its longstanding claim to the "Windows" trademark.
In an entry posted to his Michael's Minute Web Blog, Lindows CEO Michael Robertson assured customers that there will be no changes to how Lindows products function or their overall appearance; although, the "Linspire" moniker will trickle down through the entire Lindows product line in every language version.
"We are pleased to resolve this litigation on terms that make business sense for all parties," said Robertson. "Over the next few months Lindows will cease using the term Lindows and transition to Linspire globally as our company name and primary identifier for our operating system product."
The courtroom drama that unfolded over the past two years yielded a potentially striking blow to Microsoft's "Windows" trademark on at least one occasion when U.S. District Judge John Coughenour issued a preliminary ruling stating Lindows.com may continue using the name Lindows.
"Lindows.com has presented sufficient evidence to rebut the presumption of validity of the Windows mark," wrote Coughenour.
Microsoft appealed the judge's decision and argued that the name Lindows was confusingly similar to its own trademark.
Following its victory in court, Lindows.com's crusade to debunk Microsoft's claim on "Windows" intensified when it called on the open source community to assist it in its struggle against Redmond.
Today's settlement serves as the final chapter in the case and brings all litigation to an end.
Essentially, Microsoft now has rights to the Lindows name through control of the Internet domain, and at the same time, Lindows has to change its corporate name and branding. Sure, they got $20,000,000, but these days that's really not much at all. Hardly a settlement - more like a buyout that cements Microsoft's ownership of anything that is remotely similar to the word "windows".
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True, True. Maybe I will legally change my name to Shindows and see if I can get a $20 million dollars settlement since that's Microsoft's answer to everything.
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mikerowesoft.com anyone remember that?
anywyas linspire is a very bad version of linux i mean you run as root the whole time wich is VERY dangerous. Uhh while i'm glad linspire got a huge cash settlement they are just as bad for taking opensource programs and putting thier name on them even though they didn't write them... sure it is legal under the GPL that still doesn't mean it is ethical.
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I'm really sorry this was settled. You know Microsoft wanted it settled because they were beginning to see the end of their silly patent on the word "windows." Somebody needs to get some serious control of the patent office. I wonder if a certain Texas college football team will be forced to change it's name in 2006-7-8-9?
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I sure remember that kid, he got a killing from M$. And ya I don't even touch Linspire do to the way it runs - I much perfer a full-blow Linux ditro or Windows itself (for games mainly).
Though I have to give Linspire props for sponcering certain GPL programs like NVU which is free to the world and with a sponcer will continue to grow and get better (which at times has stopped otherwise seeming good *nix programs).
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>>>anywyas linspire is a very bad version of linux i mean you run as root the whole time wich is VERY dangerous.
On a desktop OS (as is Linspire) this is no more dangerous than running as an administrator under Windows which nobody seems to think much of. Do you run as an administrator on your local windows machine. Thought so.
>>>Uhh while i'm glad linspire got a huge cash settlement they are just as bad for taking opensource programs and putting thier name on them even though they didn't write them... sure it is legal under the GPL that still doesn't mean it is ethical.
Right, because nobody else does that... Not SuSE, RedHat or Mandrake (heh).
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I thought all he got was an Xbox and something, he didn't get any millions. Hardly a killing if ya ask me.
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