Lindows.com wins one [LWN.net]

Lindows.com wins one

Posted Feb 11, 2004 15:48 UTC (Wed) by Yukinoroh (guest, #19369)
Parent article: Lindows.com wins one

And just when will Microsoft get scolded for marketing the word "Word" ?

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Microsoft is not enforcing this one

Posted Feb 11, 2004 16:19 UTC (Wed) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link]

As far as I know, Microsoft is not sueing Corel for WordPerfect and AbiSource for AbiWord, even in the countries where "word" is not a word.

Microsoft is not enforcing this one

Posted Feb 11, 2004 18:20 UTC (Wed) by Yukinoroh (guest, #19369) [Link]

My point is about Microsoft's habit for their product names to use common words that directly and only use their base concept, some kind of attempt at monopolizing them maybe ? Just think about Messenger, Explorer, Media Player... I mean, I could try selling cereal that are called "Wheat" and computer speakers that are called "Sound", but then, suppose a competitor wants to call his product Wheatabix, or SoundBlaster ? At least WordPerfect has "perfect" in it, which adds some difficulty for other companies to legally use the name. (And besides, I might be wrong, but I think Corel licensed the name before Microsoft licensed Word.)

Microsoft is not enforcing this one

Posted Feb 14, 2004 21:35 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

That doesn't work even if you make up a brand new word. Think of kleenex and aspirin. Kimberley Clark and Bayer lost the exclusive right to those words, which they made up specifically for their products, in some countries. They are now such English words that "can't be bought out of the English language."

The lesson marketers learned was that you must have and promote both a generic term and a brand name in order to maintain a brand.

So I don't think Microsoft is trying to control the use of terms like "media player." It knows better.

Word not a trademark

Posted Feb 12, 2004 15:51 UTC (Thu) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]

Microsoft was forced to give up claims for a trademark on the word "Word", in the US anyway, long ago. Now they assert (as they may) trademarks on "Microsoft Word" and "MSWord". Anybody can market any software as "Word" without restriction, as long as it doesn't say "Microsoft Word" anywhere.