A company named Bing! Information Design in St. Louis is suing Microsoft for alleged trademark infringement of the name Bing.
The company, a privately held information graphics and multimedia design company, has been using the Bing! trademark since the year 2000. According to the St.Louis Business Journal Bing! Information Design claims that the new search engine"s name causes confusion and dilutes the value of its trademark.
Microsoft spokesperson Kevin Kutz provided a statement regarding the issues: "we believe this suit to be without merit and we do not believe there is any confusion in the marketplace with regard to the complainant"s offerings and Microsoft"s Bing," he said in a statement. "We respect trademarks and other people"s intellectual property, and look forward to the next steps in the judicial process."
In recent weeks Bing has launched a Silverlight version of its Maps, Bing Mobile for iPhone and Windows Mobile devices and suffered nearly an hour long Bing outage when the search engine was unavailable.
Thanks to The.Clinton for the news tip