The dispute dates back to December 2001 when Microsoft filed a
trade mark suit in the US seeking to prevent Lindows.com from using
the terms LindowsOS and Lindows.com, arguing that they infringe on
its rights in Windows.
The case is due to come to trial in the US in March, but courts
in Finland, Sweden and the Benelux countries last month granted
temporary injunctions against the company, prohibiting it from
distributing Lindows software.
Lindows.com's founder and CEO is Michael Robertson, an
individual familiar with intellectual property litigation.
Robertson founded MP3.com in 1998, which became a popular target
for copyright lawsuits until media attention was diverted by the
launch of Napster.
Yesterday he announced that the company would re-launch its
software programme under the name 'Lin---s', pronounced
Lin-dash.
"Dutch citizens deserve the same choices that are currently
available to the citizens of more than one hundred countries around
the world," said Robertson. "Lin-dash ensures that the Netherlands
will have affordable, virus-free options instead of just expensive
Microsoft software."
Lindows.com recently won a victory in the US case, when last
week a US District Court ruled that the meaning of the term
'windows' should not be considered in its current day usage, but in
the usage common at the time before Microsoft's Windows products
were released onto the market.
The court's ruling means that if the trial jury finds that
'windows' was a generic term at the time of the Windows release,
then it cannot be the basis for a trade mark.
