Microsoft Asks Court To Fine Lindows Yet Again

from the never-ends... dept

One thing you can definitely say about Michael Robertson is that he knows how to use controversy and lawsuits to get publicity. After first losing the trademark dispute with Microsoft over the Lindows name in Benelux, he changed the product name to Lin---s. This didn't make Microsoft happy, so they changed the name again to Linspire. However, it appears Microsoft is still not satisfied and is asking the court to fine them again - which must delight Robertson for the publicity he's getting. However, when you look at the details, this move by Microsoft seems particularly petty (though, it must be admitted, switching the name to Lin---s was fairly petty as well). Here, the complaint is that in the copyright notice on the Linspire page, it still says that Linspire is owned by the company Lindows. Microsoft is claiming that this will confuse people - which is a huge stretch. The judge should toss this out. Meanwhile, Microsoft and Lindows/Linspire should stop wasting time over things like this and spend their money and effort on things that actually make their products more useful.

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