RSSApple Gets Win in 'Tiger' Trademark Suit
By Nate Mook | Published May 16, 2005, 1:14 PM
Apple has scored an early victory in a lawsuit brought against the company by TigerDirect, which alleged Mac OS X 10.4, known as Tiger, infringed on its trademarked name. U.S. District Court Judge Joan Lenard rejected TigerDirect's request for a preliminary injunction forcing Apple to stop using the word tiger.
"There is greater risk of damage to Apple from granting the injunction than any potential harm to TigerDirect from Apple's use of Tiger marks," Lenard wrote in a 56-page decision, according to AppleInsider.
TigerDirect filed the suit last month, just days before Apple's new operating system was slated to go on sale. The online retailer claimed Apple engaged in deceptive and unfair trade practices and that Apple's use of Tiger, "is causing confusion, mistake and deception among the general purchasing public."
The main issue revolved around search engines; TigerDirect says Apple's Mac OS X 10.4 launch has flooded the Internet with references to "tiger" and knocked the retailer from the top of search results on Google, Yahoo and MSN.
"Apple Computer has created and launched a nationwide media blitz led by Steven Jobs, overwhelming the computer world with a sea of Tiger references," TigerDirect's lawsuit said. The company asked for $75,000 in damages.
But Judge Lenard disputed that Apple adopted the Tiger name in bad faith and rejected claims that any confusion would arise among customers.
"Any given customer who cross-shops TigerDirect and Apple, whether over the internet or in person at their retail local stores, will be able to distinguish their respective retail outlets due to the distinctive differences in their marketplaces' appearance and messages," Lenard said.
Just because you have a trademark in one field doesn't mean you have it in all. Apple Concrete in no way competes or would cause confusion to Apple Computer and vice versa.
TigerDirect is on very lose footing here. No normal thinking person is going to mix up a mail order outfit with a codename for an OS.
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|"There is greater risk of damage to Apple from granting the injunction than any potential harm to TigerDirect from Apple's use of Tiger marks."
While I agree with that statement, that's not the judgement that was supposed to be made. It's not about who stands to lose more. It's about who's right, and Tigerdirect was right. They had every legal right to sue Apple for damages no matter how nasty it was that they did it the day before its release.
I guarantee if that was Microsoft that was infringing on the Trademark they would have lost in a second and had to pay millions in damages. What the heck is going on here?
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|I guess that means that all the time money and effort a company puts into filing copyrights on it's products, services, or trade names has been made void across the board.
Does this mean that if I open an online store called the windows shop and sell everything glass related (including moniktors cause the crt contains glass :) ) that microsoft is powerless to say anything.
Or closer to this... I open up an online store and retail outlet and call it windowsdirect (lol) and it sells all hardward and software that has a brand of windows ** compatible that I am fgree to do so ? :) lol
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|exactly.
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|Respectfully, you don't know what you're talking about.
The quote that you provided is from the judge's decision on the request made by TigerDirect for a "preliminary injunction" which, had it been granted, would have forced Apple to stop using the "Tiger" name UNTIL THE ACTUAL CASE WAS ACTUALLY DECIDED SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE. The judge HAS NOT determined who is right and who is wrong; rather, he has RIGHTLY and SIMPLY weighed the potential damage to Apple if he DID issue the preliminary injunction vs. the potential damage to TigerDirect if he DIDN'T.
What this means is that Apple MAY continue to use the "Tiger" name UNTIL such time as TigerDirect actually files suit and a judgement on their complaint is issued. When will this happen? My opinion: NEVER - TigerDirect doesn't have a paw to stand on. :)
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|i dont like apple products. They are good quality but they dont work eith half the normal stuff. Too bad they won.
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|Correction...Apple computers work perfectly fine with any program written for Mac OS X, BSD Unix, X-Windows, and M$ Windows if you want to install Virtual PC. Anybody who has ever used a Mac already knows this, those who have never used a Mac usually take wild guesses like the one above this reply.
If my memory serves me correctly (which I'm sure it does) "Tony the Tiger" has been around a lot longer than TigerDirect. Sounds to me like TigerDirect got just what they deserved. They're just trying to make up for lost sales they've suffered because newegg.com has better prices than TigerDirect has.
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|You are missing the point. "Tony the Tiger" did not own the Trademark. Tigerdirect does.
And sure you can make everything work on Mac. It's just like you can make everything work on Linux. But who wants to take all that time and effort figuring out compatibility issues and quirks when you can have the real thing that's a lot easier and quicker to use? Everything works on everything, but that doesn't mean you want to use everything on one platform.
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|Check your facts a little closer...Kellogg definitely does have a trademark on Tony the Tiger. Just like Hasbro has a trademark on Tiger Electronics. Both of which have been around a lot longer than TigerDirect.
I also wasn't saying everybody had to run everything on a Mac, or Linux, or Windows, or whatever other OS out there...I was only making the point that blanket statements such as the one in the above always come from people who have never even touched anything besides a Windows machine. Otherwise, they would know better than to make statements like that. That's just painfully obvious to anybody who knows there's more to the computer world than the world's most commercially successful virus known as Windows...
As they say, ignorance is bliss...And FUD like this soon follows thereafter to protect the ignorant from believing anything else...
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|the differencxe is Tony the tiger doesnt flood marketing as tiger. :) they use "tony the tiger" in relationshiop to their frosted flakes brand cereal :)
same with Hasbro. They market a product name such as Toy X not Tiger. if they use the tiger electronics trademark they use "tiger electronics" and once again dont flood the market with the trademark of "tiger".
Apple did. bad apple
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|Tiger Electronics
http://www.hasbro.com/tigertoys/
Wonder if they ever tried suing them as well.
This is the golden age of the frivolous lawsuit.
Actually I thought that was last year, when companies just bought other companies to sue whoever was using their IP.
Not a bad scheme though I guess "hey lets sue company x because any bad publicity is still free publicity and if we actually win we get paid as well".
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|No corporation — including Apple who for decades has pulled this same legal stunt against anyone who came near the word "apple" — should own a generic word. It didn't work for Microsoft and shouldn't work for Google either. In the late 90s, Apple went so far as to sue a concrete company in my hometown named Apple Concrete Works. Jeebus.
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|Works? Wow...I'm suprised Microsoft didn't jump on that one.
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