You’d think that after the Internet Explorer trademark ownership debacle (CI No 3,445), executives at Microsoft Corp might take the time to check that they owned a term like Windows 2000 before adopting it for their flagship product. Not so. When I set up the web site in 1996 I put a trademark sign after the term Windows 2000. That gives me the common law trademark, an apologetic Bob Kerstein told ComputerWire. Luckily for the beleaguered Redmond software giant, Kerstein, who runs Encyberpedia.com, isn’t the litigious type. I just promote educational information on the internet, he says, if them using Windows 2000 helps raise my visibility, I see no reason to take their money. I’m not doing this to get rich.
