Trying to convince the world that “Binging” things on the Internet is as catchy as “Googling” is challenging enough, but now Microsoft will need to fight for the right to keep its name. Bing! Information Design LLC has filed a suit against Microsoft in the Circuit Court of St. Louis alleging, “trademark infringement, unfair competition, and tortuous interference with business expectancy”. Bing! Information design claims they have been using the trademark since early 2000, while Microsoft only began using it around 6 months ago.
The lawsuit is seeking “actual and punitive damages” since Bing! claims Microsoft knew of the design company long before launching its search engine, and therefore is also asking the judge to grant funds for corrective advertising to remedy the confusion they have caused. Legally, companies that are in different industries are generally allowed to have similar names, but Bing! claims that because it makes heavy use of the Internet and search engine advertising, they have a valid complaint.
A Microsoft spokesperson responded to Ars Technica on the issue, and they don’t seem to be all that concerned about it at this point. “We believe this suit to be without merit and we do not believe there is any confusion in the marketplace with regards to the complaint, but are aware of the suit based on media reports. We respect trademarks and other people’s intellectual property, and look forward to the next steps in the judicial process”. Its possible to pick a fight with them on these grounds after they got caught red handed stealing source code from the open source community, but at least they made good in the end.
Is Bing! Information Design just after some free publicity?
Comments are closed on this article
Jono
December 21, 2009 at 2:30am
good. its a stupid name anyways. I mean it's bad enough we have to "google" something, why would I want to "bing" it.
fullur
December 21, 2009 at 12:34am
Every company on the planet "makes heavy use of the Internet and search engine advertising." This is nothing more than another company filing a frivilous lawsuit to get some publicity and possibly get some cash out of the giant. Of course, if the World Wildlife Foundation can force the World Wrestling Federation to change their name because of infringing on the abbreviation WWF, chances are that these losers will win too.
sirphunkee
December 20, 2009 at 8:22pm
"torturous interference with business expectancy" is referring to the fact that now microsoft has iconocized the term "bing", other companies, even ones in different industries, with the same name will unfair obstacles to ever being able to get full fair use of the trademark they already own. A company that doesn't take action like this in this type of situation is often signing their own death warrant. Large entities such as microsoft can't just usurp trademarks, rendering them innefective to those who registered them long before.
nekollx
December 21, 2009 at 10:17am
How isMs usurping anything when their in complety different industries?
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sirphunkee
December 22, 2009 at 8:26am
Because Microsoft is iconocizing the term, not just using it. In other words, their use of it is so prolific and pervasive as to devalue its use in any other business or industry. This is a commonly-used position in the legal world.
The smaller company's lawyers will likely propose in their filing that Microsoft's use of the TM will cost them $X in lost potential revenue, based on business projections, etc. M$ will counter that it could only cost them $(1/3)X in lost business, then they'll counter and counter-counter until they can agree on a number.
While that does sound like just a way to grab cash from a fat cow, the truth is that the company's concerns about lost earning potential as a result of all this aren't entirely without warrant.
And on top of that, it's not unlikely that M$ was already aware of the TM being in use by this company and decided to go ahead and start using it anyway, in the knowledge that 1) they might never get sued in the first place, and 2) even if they do, a settlement of the (relatively small) scale of this one would still be worth it, to be able to use a term they firmly believe is crucial to the success of the product.
foamcup
December 20, 2009 at 6:13pm
I never heard of this company until just now, so they must be after the publicity.
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