INNOVATIVE TRADEMARKING
(Redmond, Washington,
press release by IP Newswire, 01 April 1998)
Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ: MSFT) announced today
that it has been granted a registered trademark on the
name "Innovative" for its software product line. Vice
President for Corporate and Legal Affairs William
"Duke" Neucom stated "With Microsoft expanding into new
arenas, it was essential that we establish an identity
for our core family of products." A group of other
software vendors, led by Sun Microsystems, had challenged
the application on the grounds that descriptive
terms cannot be trademarked. In rejecting this challenge,
the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) cited
the history of Microsoft's use of the name "Innovative":
despite longterm consistent use, no confusion has
emerged. Microsoft's response to the challenge included
a massive collection of articles from the popular press
and trade journals, as well as court and Congressional
testimony, and the PTO examiners did their own literature search,
including the World Wide Web. The PTO
decision stated "This convincingly demonstrated that no
reasonably knowledgeable person would confuse a
Microsoft Innovative (Reg) product with an innovative
product." Full text of this decision is available from
the PTO, including its Web site
(www.uspto.gov).
Version Info: $Revision: 1.3 $ $Date: 2002/03/10 07:59:22 $
Copyright 1998 by Douglas B. Moran
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