Lindows.com has won a court ruling that will allow it to review an enormous
amount of legal evidence from an old battle between Apple Computer
and Microsoft
.
Originally slated for April 7, rhe Microsoft-Lindows.com jury trial has been delayed until December 2003, which will give Lindows.com nearly ten months to review more than 300 boxes of
evidence.
The ruling was ordered by the United States District Court in Seattle, which
told Microsoft it has to produce a massive amount of evidence, as part of
its ongoing Windows trademark dispute. The jury is scheduled to begin
reviewing the case on December 1, 2003.
Lindows.com contends in legal documents that several computer features, such as
windows, icons and menus are not the property of Microsoft, because they are
used widely throughout the personal computer business.
Microsoft claims it should be able to main the exclusive use of the word
“windows.” But last year, the court denied Microsoft a request for a
preliminary injunction against Lindows.com.
In that ruling the court said “in its defense of a copyright suit brought by
Apple Computer, Microsoft successfully argued that several companies had
introduced user interfaces featuring overlapping windows prior to
Microsoft’s announcement of its Windows product.”
Lindows.com, contends “windows” is a generic
term, and not the exclusive domain of Microsoft.
The case in question began in December 2001 when Microsoft filed a trademark
action against Lindows.com and moved to block the company from using it as
its company, or the product name: LindowsOS. But Microsoft failed to
convince a court and has yet to establish that “windows” is a protectable
trademark.
The Microsoft-Lindows.com jury trial was expected to start in April 2003, but now
that a federal court has ruled that Lindows.com will have access to a raft
of court documents, the trial won’t start until December.
