The San Diego, California-based desktop Linux vendor adopted the Linspire name in April after failing to persuade a US court to block Microsoft’s court cases in The Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, France, and Canada. Microsoft claims the Lindows name infringes its Windows trademark.
The change to Linspire has failed to halt Microsoft’s legal crusade, however, as the software giant has filed a new claim against Linspire in the Netherlands asking for a 100,000 euros ($118,930) per day fine for continued trademark infringement.
We halted the sale of all products under any name to the Netherlands some time ago, said Lindows CEO Michael Robertson. Now Microsoft is taking the ridiculous position that the US required copyright notice in tiny text on the bottom of some of the pages of Linspire’s web site will confuse consumers.
Lindows has retained its original name in the US and for corporate purposes and hopes to retain the use of the name globally if it is successful in a US trademark infringement case. Microsoft has repeatedly failed in securing an injunction against Lindows in the US.
The US infringement case has now been delayed while Microsoft prepares to appeal the judge’s ruling that the jury should consider whether the word windows is generic, based on the period between 1983 and 1985 before Microsoft released its products. If the US jury decides that the word windows is generic, it will not be entitled to trademark protection.
