RE: Trademark question

["Fred Ridder" <docudoc -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

The issue with Windows as a trademark is that the word
"window" and its plural were already "terms of art" in the
computer industry before Microsoft ever released their
window-oriented OS.

"Sun" would only be an issue as a trademark if the product
associated with it were a star or a source of light/heat or
a giant thurmonuclear furnace, where there is already an
existing product or service using that name. For computers,
there's no issue of prior use. Trademarks do *not* have
to be made-up globally unique names. They only have to
be reasonably unique in a given industry or for a given type
of product or service. You could make a hammer called a
Whopper, but you can't use that trademark for a sandwich
unless your name happens to be Burger King. Using a unique
or made-up name as a trademark simply makes it clearer to
see when someone is infringing on your intellectual property
rights.



>From: "Stephen Arrants" <steve -at- mbfbioscience -dot- com>
>To: "Janice Gelb" <janice -dot- gelb -at- sun -dot- com>,"TECHWR-L" 
><techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
>Subject: RE: Trademark question
>Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 09:17:03 -0400
>
> > And yet, somehow they managed to bamboozle the
> > court into granting them a trademark for "Windows"
> >
> > -- Janice
>
>
>Kind of like the way Sun Microsystems trademarked "Sun", eh? :-)
>
>
>--
>Steve Arrants   steve -at- mbfbioscience -dot- com
>MBF Bioscience  (Microbrightfield, Inc.)
>
>
>
>
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