Compliance Toolkit

Story: Court delays Microsoft vs Lindows trial

• 
• 

Presumably this court action is just another stage in Microsoft's bid to own the word "windows", and by extension "window", outright. But when it achieves that, what next? Will it, I wonder, build a case for levying an annual royalty, if not on every window in every building in the world, at least on any published reference to a window or windows?

How can anyone seriously claim proprietorship of such a commonplace word as "window", whether in singular or plural form? Surely logic and equity demand that Microsoft's rights be restricted to the plural form and only in the graphical and typographical styles in which it has hitherto appeared on Microsoft products. Trademark laws in most civilised countries, including (I would like to think) the United States, place (or used to place) fairly unequivocal restrictions on the registration of common nouns and commonplace proper names per se as commercial property. Even before Microsoft thought about a graphical interface, I would not have had a cat's chance in hell of registering the word "windows" (as opposed to specific and identifiable stylised presentations of it) as a trademark. Why should it be any different for Microsoft?

• 
• 

• 
• 
• 

Full Talkback thread