By now just about everybody is aware of the on going lawsuit between Michael Robertson"s abomination known as Linspire (Lindows) and Microsoft"s Windows. Is Lindows violating the Windows name that Microsoft is best known for? Though no easy answer can be given, but Michael Robertson feels that his product isn"t in any violation. He insists that Windows is a generic name and Microsoft has nothing on him. Then why did he name his product initially Lindows? Could it be that he simply wanted to ride off the success of Microsoft"s Windows operating system? In my opinion yes, why else would he name his product Lindows? As I mentioned no easy answer can be given, but hearing both sides of the story never hurts.
As a result of the trademark battle between Lindows Inc. and Microsoft Corp. concerning whether Lindows conflicts with the Windows trademark, Microsoft"s very Windows trademark has been called into question. But if U.S. resellers were judging the Windows trademark controversy, would Microsoft come out on top? Not necessarily.
Microsoft has been battling Lindows in both U.S. and European courts over alleged similarities between the Windows and Lindows names. So far, the software giant has enjoyed some legal success against Lindows in the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland. Most recently though, Lindows and its resellers won a case in the Netherlands, and, for the most part, the San Diego-based Linux distributor has been winning in American courts.