By Rachel Chalmers
The Walt Disney Co will be able to use it’s green-light logo for the Go Network for a little while longer, at least. At the request of search engine company Goto.com Inc, a federal judge slapped an injunction on Disney and Infoseek Corp preventing it from using the logo. Pasadena, California-based Goto.com argued that the Go Network’s logo is similar enough to its own to confuse the general public. On Friday November 12 1999, Judge Terry Hatter agreed, and Disney was forced to exchange its traffic-signal logo for a plain icon featuring the words GO.com on a white background.
Now the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has suspended Judge Hatter’s injunction, meaning Disney and Infoseek may use the traffic- signal while their appeal goes ahead. Nevertheless, the plain logo was still in place as ComputerWire went to press. Indeed, Goto.com remains confident that Hatter’s decision will be upheld. The decision today by the 9th Circuit to issue a stay is a procedural one and not a ruling on the merits of the case, explained Goto.com’s litigation counsel Pierce O’Donnell. We are confident that when the 9th Circuit reviews the facts of the case, they will affirm Judge Hatter’s preliminary injunction order.
It’s almost possible to sympathize with Disney’s dilemma. It’s unlikely, after all, that the giant company was trying to exploit the name recognition of its far smaller rival; a traffic signal is just the most obvious logo for a go-related name. What’s happening is that the image space on the web is becoming nearly as hotly contested as its namespace. Compare, for example, the logo for Bill Gates’ digital image company, Corbis – a spiral – with that of the Debian Linux distribution – another spiral. Now ponder the logo for Transmeta’s newly unveiled microprocessor, Crusoe. You guessed it, it’s another spiral. Next thing you know, Esther Dyson will be setting up an Internet Corporation for Assigned Images… รก
