New subject: Completely on topic... Apple IIgs

13 Aug 2002

This may be a bit off topic.

I received a forwarded message that originated from lindows.com.  They
are in a suit with Microsoft regarding the use of "Lindows,com". 
Microsoft is suing Lindows for trademark violation.  In the message,
Michael Robertson, with Lindows, is looking for old documentation of the
use of the word "windows" and "windowing" prior to 1983.  I can't
think
of a better resource than this list to find these references.  The
relevant part of the forwarded message is quoted below.  

Maybe some of the list members can provide the needed info to
lindows.com

Martin Marshall

________________quote from forwarded
message______________________________________________

  Microsoft Corp. v. Lindows.com Update 

  Some of you have sent me email asking for an update on the battle with
Microsoft and wanting to
  know how you can help. In case you missed it, Microsoft sued to shut
down Lindows.com earlier in
  the year. It was a transparent attempt to stifle the inevitable
competition which Linux represents.
  Their allegation was (and is) that they own the trademark for the word
"windows," maintaining that
  no other company should be allowed to use the word "windows" -- not
even the "indows" portion. 

  Of course, there are hundreds of products and companies that use the
word "windows" - and
  Microsoft has never filed suit against any of them. That's a huge clue
that this suit has little to do
  with trademark confusion. (If you missed any part of the proceedings
to date, visit
  http://www.lindows.com/opposition to read the court papers and
summaries.)

  Many people have congratulated us, prematurely, on our victory. While
the judicial system did block
  their request to shut us down, a trial is looming for April 2003. At
that time, the Judge (or jury) will
  decide whether Microsoft has a valid trademark for the word "windows"
and whether the
  Lindows.com name is confusing. In the interim, we're moving through
the legal process where
  Microsoft is demanding, as part of the discovery process, everything
...
 from our business plan to our   list of partner
companies. As you can imagine, it's challenging for a
39-person company to
  compete with a Goliath that has hundreds of people--just in the legal
department alone. This is
  where we could use a bit of help from our community of Insiders and
those on our mailing list.

  While Microsoft can outspend us with high-priced lawyers and experts,
they cannot buy history. We
  know, of course, that the word "windows" had been used in the industry
for years before Microsoft
  adopted it in the early 1980s for the name of its windowing interface
product, Microsoft Windows
  1.0. We could, however, use your help in gathering as much evidence as
possible to show the usage
  of the words "windows", "window" and "windowing" before
and after
1983, the date Microsoft first
  filed its trademark application. If you have magazine or newspaper
articles, academic papers,
  journal articles, product manuals, advertisements, textbooks,
dictionaries, or anything else that uses
  the terms, we'd like to hear from you. We'd also like to hear from
anyone who had personal
  experience in the industry during those early years and can recall the
history of the early
  windowing products such as Xerox's Star, VisiCorp's VisiOn, Apple's
Lisa, Digital Research's GEM,
  Quarterdeck's DesQ, IBM's TopView, and others. Please email all your
findings to
  legal(a)lindows.com.

As always, thanks for all your help.

  Michael Robertson 

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Microsoft vs Lindows