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The Courts Government OS X Operating Systems Businesses News Apple

Red Hat Founder Offers Help in Apple vs.Tiger Lawsuit 517

Posted by Zonk from the fun-with-trademark-law dept.
Art Vanderlay writes "Robert F. Young, a founder of Linux distributor Red Hat and now owner of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats Canadian football team, has offered Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs a quick way out of a lawsuit by TigerDirect over the latest version of Tiger. According to the Globe and Mail, Mr. Young has offered to license the Hamilton Tiger-Cats' historical use of the word Tiger to Apple free of charge. The Hamilton Tiger-Cats have been around since 1869. '136 years ago we were called The Tigers,' Mr. Young said. 'If anyone owns the exclusive rights to the word tiger with that much history and tradition, it's gotta be us.'"
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Red Hat Founder Offers Help in Apple vs.Tiger Lawsuit More

Red Hat Founder Offers Help in Apple vs.Tiger Lawsuit

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  • Tyger Tyger (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Sad Loser ( 625938 ) * on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:13PM (#12425053)

    I don't know whether that will be a whole lot of help, as service and trade marks are limited to being in respect of some specific area of trade/ practice, and I don't see a whole lot of overlap between sports teams and computer software.

    If someone were looking for prior art, I think William Blake (1757-1827) got there before a Canadian football team:

    The Tyger

    Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
    In the forests of the night,
    What immortal hand or eye
    Could frame thy fearful symmetry?


    In what distant deeps or skies
    Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
    On what wings dare he aspire?
    What the hand dare seize the fire?


    And what the shoulder, & what art,
    Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
    And when thy heart began to beat,
    What dread hand? & what dread feet?


    What the hammer? what the chain?
    In what furnace was thy brain?
    What the anvil? what dread grasp
    Dare its deadly terrors clasp?


    When the stars threw down their spears,
    And water'd heaven with their tears,
    Did he smile his work to see?
    Did he who made the Lamb make thee?


    Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
    In the forests of the night,
    What immortal hand or eye
    Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

    • Oh hells yeah (Score:3, Informative)

      by RevDobbs ( 313888 ) *
      A trademark used in one indstry has nothing to do with a trademark used in another industry; this is how Apple Computers can call itself "Apple", much to the displeasure of Apple Record Label. I highly doubt that a trademark infringment suit brougt by the Tiger-Cats against Tiger Direct will get anywhere. (How the former World Wrestling Foundation lost the rights to WWF stumps the shit out of me.) IMHO Apple is in the wrong on this.

      • Re:Oh hells yeah (Score:5, Insightful)

        by FidelCatsro ( 861135 ) <fidelcatsro AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:18PM (#12425121) Journal
        Ofcourse the same can be applied to a law suit against Tiger-direct(a retailer) against apple for the use in OS X Tiger(An operating system).

        Tiger-direct is their name not Tiger , What about Tiger games(LCD games).

        The problem here is Tiger is a fairly commen word. Tiger-direct have no hope here and are just going to waste money .Even if they are succesfull(I highly doubt they will be) they risk a counter suit from a lot of other places.

        • Re:Oh hells yeah (Score:3, Informative)

          by FidelCatsro ( 861135 )
          Just to back up that Tiger games example with a link
          http://users2.ev1.net.nyud.net:8090/~rik1138/Tiger / [nyud.net]

          Tiger Games made a lot of small LCD games and tabletops , i used to have heaps and this was well before 96.I think more recently they made the game.com (bit of a failure)

        • Re:Oh hells yeah (Score:5, Interesting)

          by daviddennis ( 10926 ) <david@amazing.com> on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @05:00PM (#12425613) Homepage
          But they are successful!

          It can't be a coincidence that about the time the lawsuit broke, I suddenly found Tiger Direct ads appearing on Slashdot. In fact, as I write this, there is one sitting happily on top of my screen. They are attempting to take advantage of the free publicity which was the true purpose of the suit.

          You might be interested in the documents in the lawsuit [macmerc.com]. It doesn't strike me as a well-argued suit and I'm confident it will fail.

          But a lot more people have heard of Tiger Direct now than then, and they might get some sympathy as the "underdog". Unfortunately about 90% of them are Mac users and Tiger doesn't deal with Macs at all. So I doubt it will be the windfall Tiger would like to see.

          Of course the story we've responded to also has the same purpose. I laughed out loud when I read it, so it's okay by me. But this story was meant to provide publicity for the team and Bob Young.

          And it has :-).

          D

          • Re:Oh hells yeah (Score:3, Interesting)

            by FidelCatsro ( 861135 )
            Too true , perusing this it does seem like a 17 page publicity stunt(I am just skimming ..)
            Works fairly well also .
            *enter conspiracy mode*
            Ofcourse Apple gets a few nice links too...Conspiracy theory hm

            So tiger direct gets an advertisment on slashdot , apple computers gets advertisments on legal journals and other areas that would not normaly feature them.

            I think we have the making of a fairly good conspiracy theory here .
            *end conspiracy mode*
            *enter silly teritory*

            Ofcourse it could backfire and open up a

          • Butthead Astronomer (Score:5, Funny)

            by goombah99 ( 560566 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @08:07PM (#12427593)
            I think apple should change the name to "butthead vendor" like they did when Carl Sagan objected to his name as project code word and they changed it it Butthead Astronomer.

            Taking the initiative I want to google bomb Tiger direct by linking it to the name Butthead Vendor [tigerdirect.com] to Tiger Direct.

            ANd here I'm linking Apple to Tiger [apple.com] and to Tiger Direct [apple.com].

            I urge you to join me in adding links. Put these in your sig for the next month so they are all over slashdot!

      • Actually Apple does have legal issues with Apple (Score:5, Informative)

        by Glasswire ( 302197 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:20PM (#12425149) Homepage
        In fact, Apple got in trouble in the 70s when they first used the word and had to agree that Apple (computer company) would not get into the business of Apple ( music company). Of course, Apple (music company) cried foul recently over iTunes....
        So, you can see cross-industry trademarks DO have to be negotiated.
        • The thing with Apple computer was that if they wanted to they could've gone into the business of computer hardware for music purposes and then they would've been trampling on Apple's (music company) turf somewhat. I really don't know how they've gotten away with QuickTime, iTunes and the iPod though.
        • The was because Jobs and Wozniak were big Beatles fans and they loved Apple Records for it. They had gone to talk to Apple Records if they would let them use their name for their computer company and they explicity stated they Apple computers would not go into the music industry.

          Cross-Industry trademarks don't have to negotiate. They only need to negotiate when they cross over into each others market, just like what Apple Computer is doing by entering the iTunes and audio speaker industry.

          If the Tiger sof
      • A trademark used in one indstry has nothing to do with a trademark used in another industry; this is how Apple Computers can call itself "Apple", much to the displeasure of Apple Record Label.

        I bet Apple Computer will be pretty pissed, though!

      • Re:Oh hells yeah (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gsfprez ( 27403 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @05:09PM (#12425738)
        Estoppel.

        You can't sit there and watch someone for over a year call their product "Tiger" and then, 1 day before it goes on sale yell foul. Tiger direct knew about Tiger for well over a year - as we all did - and therefore, they cannot, because of estoppel.

        The law states that you can't know about some "wrong doing" by someone and then conveniently use it against them long after you knew about the wrong doing. Its what (in theory) prevents a cop from simply following you around all day and then giving you 24 tickets when you get home.

        (tangent: if you actually had someone following you around all day, you'd probably rack up well over 1 ticket per mile... did you change lanes more than one time per 200 feet? did you signal 100 feet prior to turning right? did you allow 3 seconds between you and the car ahead of you? Did you come to a full stop before turning right on red? Did you travel more than 200 feet in the suicide lane? Did you go more than 1 mile per hour faster than the allowed speed limit? Did you go slow enough in the rain?)

        That would be like me annoucing on Dec 24th, 2006 that my company, Longhorn Computers, is suing Microsoft to cease and desist from sales of Windows Longhorn. I (and everyone else) knows that Microsoft has called it Longhorn for who know s how long... its unfair to last minute try to torpedo Microsoft.

        google the word "estoppel" yourself, or go read up on it on groklaw.

        • That would be like me annoucing on Dec 24th, 2006 that my company, Longhorn Computers, is suing Microsoft to cease and desist from sales of Windows Longhorn. I (and everyone else) knows that Microsoft has called it Longhorn for who know s how long... its unfair to last minute try to torpedo Microsoft.

          Not quite - first off, I will place a bet today that Microsoft will never market an operating system named Longhorn. Much like they have never marketed operating systems called Chicago, Memphis, Cairo, et

      • As this [monstervintage.com] site points out (didnt /. post this too?), Monster Cable went on a spree of suing anything that had "Monster" in its name, including the Monsters Inc movie, all the Discovery channel Monster shows, and the Vintage consignment clothing store linked above: Monster Vintage. To get an idea of how rediculous this is, here [uspto.gov] is a list of all trials involving Monster Cable. As you can see, they are quite litigation happy, and are still filing away. I have always thought their cables were overpriced lampcord,

      • Re:Oh hells yeah (Score:3, Informative)

        by DragonMagic ( 170846 )
        Because the World Wildlife Fund came first, and uses WWF as its initials and trademark. When the World Wrestling Federation came around, they, too, used WWF, and legal threats ensued. The Wrestling was allowed to use WWF *only* in the US and distinctly talking only about its wrestling properties. That ended when they went international and went into other properties, such as movies (The Rock, etc.).

        In the end, in order to escape a damaging lawsuit, they changed their name to the WWE to escape confusion wit

    • Re:Tyger Tyger (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:19PM (#12425141)
      Liger liger! burning bright
      In the forests of the dynamite,
      What immortal moon boots
      Dare frame thy fearful brother?
    • I don't see a whole lot of overlap between sports teams and computer software.

      Dunno about this one - sports teams and software probably have about as much in common as computer manufacturers and music publishers.

      As for mentioning the Ticats - brings back fond childhood memories of freezing my ass off on the wooden seats at Ivor Wynne. Oskee We-We!
    • If someone were looking for prior art, I think William Blake (1757-1827) got there before a Canadian football team:
      The Tyger
      Tyger! Tyger! burning bright...

      This takedown notice is to inform you that under the recently passed Copyright For Life And All Futures Lives Into Perpetuity Plus Entiching All Heirs With Lawyers Act, you are in violation of the copyright of one William Blake.

      Furthermore, the very use of the word "Immortal" should have clued you in that he was obviously speaking of his copyrigh

  • From one hole to another? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fembots ( 753724 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:13PM (#12425060) Homepage
    While the "free" license is a good gesture, it's also indirectly implying that Apple needs approval from other entities to trade, and that's the risk that shouldn't be ignored.

    What if this Tiger-Cats is bought by another business?

    And not to mention TigerDirect is more or less in the same trade (which determines the trademark's validity) as Apple, and sports is not yet computer hardware-related until robots start playing.

    If Apple wants to trade as 'Apple' exclusively in computer hardware, then it must be prepared that TigerDirect wants to trade as 'Tiger' exclusively.

    • Re:From one hole to another? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by KillerDeathRobot ( 818062 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:36PM (#12425366) Homepage
      Man, am I the only one that gets that this whole thing is a joke? It's obvious that this trademark would not help Apple at all. This whole thing is a joke pointing out how dumb Tiger Direct's suit is. As a bonus it gets Redhat some free PR.
    • What if this Tiger-Cats is bought by another business?

      As a native of Hamilton [hamilton.on.ca], I think I can speak on this point. Robert Young is also a native of Hamilton, and I highly doubt he bought the 'cats for financial reasons, but rather for sentimentality; ie home-town pride. He's therefore unlikely to sell the team in order to make a quick buck.

      And considering he has a net worth of $2 ,000,000,000 [businessweek.com], I doubt he'll ever be forced to by financial reasons.

  • Detroit Tigers (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Perl-Pusher ( 555592 )
    Have a long history withe term Tiger too.

  • From TFA (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) * <`akaimbatman' `at' `gmail.com'> on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:13PM (#12425066) Homepage Journal
    The retailer has owned trademarks on Tiger, TigerDirect and TigerSoftware since 1996.

    Last time we discussed this, the general conclusion is that TigerDirect had *registered* trademarks on all of these *except* "Tiger". Apple, OTOH, has a registered trademark on the term "Tiger". Has anyone tracked down this mysterious registration, or is TigerDirect merely claiming that their use of the mark precedes Apple's? (As I understand it, trademarks are not required to be registered. However, it can be very difficult to prove the usage of a common mark without it.)

    Honestly, I think TigerDirect is entitled to nothing more than "TigerDirect" and its derivitives. I have never seen them referred to as simply "Tiger", and I find nothing confusing about a product name vs. a company name. IMHO, TD has a long road ahead of them if they want to prove that Apple is misusing their mark. And what does TD really think they're going to get out of it anyway? The cost of the suit will drain their company dry before they ever see even a meger return. Perhaps they think Apple will settle?

    TigerDirect's contention is that Apple's use of the word "tiger" has knocked the retailer from the top of search results on Google, Yahoo and MSN.

    What a bunch of poppycock. If you do a search for "Tiger Direct" or "Tiger Computers" on Google, you get Tiger Direct. Even if you search for "Tiger", you still get Tiger Direct before Apple. But just because they happen to come up on a search for "Tiger" does not give them the right to claim the use of that mark.

    Mr. Young is also currently CEO of Lulu.com, which provides independent publishers with free access to on-demand publishing tools for books, e-books, music, images and calendars.

    Watch out for that website. It's a real Lulu! (insert groaning here)

    • Re:From TFA (Score:5, Informative)

      by Holi ( 250190 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:19PM (#12425129)
      Has anyone tracked down this mysterious registration, or is TigerDirect merely claiming that their use of the mark precedes Apple's?

      Actually it is TigerDirect's parent company Systemax that has the trademark registered, see here:
      http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=c fhosb.2.21 [uspto.gov].

      • Re:From TFA (Score:5, Informative)

        by roju ( 193642 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:42PM (#12425423)
        Thanks for the link.

        I took the liberty of noting that TD's mark is for: Mail order catalog services featuring computers and computer related products; and Retail store services featuring computers and computer related products.

        Now, to pick a random operating system, the MS Windows trademark is for: G & S: computers and components therefor, computer peripherals, and computer programs in the field of graphical applications, and manuals therefor sold as a unit.

        Interesting how they expect the Tiger OS to conflict with the mail-order business.
    • Last time we discussed this, the general conclusion is that TigerDirect had *registered* trademarks on all of these *except* "Tiger".

      It was? Did nobody bother to search TESS? Try serial # 75915934.

  • Trademarks (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FiReaNGeL ( 312636 ) <fireang3l.hotmail@com> on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:14PM (#12425071) Homepage
    Trademarking of common words is just... stupid.

    You can't have these kind of issues with a made-up name like Coca-Cola, right?

    Apple, Tiger, Windows, whats next? Imagination isn't a prerequisite anymore in marketing, it seems.
    • I'm going to trademark the work "trademark", so that companies will not be able to claim they have a TradeMark (tm) without paying me money.

    • Re:Trademarks (Score:5, Funny)

      by darthtrevino ( 812116 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:20PM (#12425155) Homepage
      The trademarks of the future must be universally unique! I propose we use guidgen.exe to generate future trademarks. Examples:

      {6E085F0D-9ACD-4317-A2EF-657F87B09A1C} Computers Inc.

      Mozilla Fire-{E252FE02-495C-499f-B63D-07D8FF2AC4D0} Web Browser!

      See there, guaranteed (virtually) to be unique from all other trademarks!!

      • Re:Trademarks (Score:5, Interesting)

        by s20451 ( 410424 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:31PM (#12425295) Journal
        Don't laugh. If you incorporate a company in Canada and you don't want to bother with a name, the company is automatically assigned a number, along with the province in which it was incorporated (for example, 3617824 Nova Scotia Inc.). In fact, all companies must have unique names, so using the number avoids the fee you incur to check the database to make sure your name hasn't been taken.

        This is why, whenever you hear of shady dealings in Canada, often they have to do with "numbered companies" that are just empty shells that exist only for accounting games.

        As a cool riff on this, there is a trendy Italian restaurant in Toronto that the owners decided to name after the numbered company they set up to administer it: 1447582. Everybody just calls it "seven numbers".

        • Re:Trademarks (Score:5, Funny)

          by TykeClone ( 668449 ) * <TykeClone@gmail.com> on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:54PM (#12425553) Homepage Journal
          As a cool riff on this, there is a trendy Italian restaurant in Toronto that the owners decided to name after the numbered company they set up to administer it: 1447582. Everybody just calls it "seven numbers".

          Nothing says "Good Italian food in Canada" like 1447582!

        • Re:Trademarks (Score:3, Informative)

          by PktLoss ( 647983 )
          Business names don't have to be unique, in fact when you register a business they warn you that without a trademark there is no protection for your business name. Registering a business only gives you the right to use that name, it does not prevent anyone else from doing the same.
      • Not just virtually guaranteed, really guaranteed. You can't guidgen fast enough to get a conflict. Ever.
    • Good point, bad example. Coca and cola are both generic words. Adding a hyphen is not exactly inventive. It's the equivalent of lemon-ade, ginger-ale, etc.
    • > Apple, Tiger, Windows, whats next?

      Air [pair.com]

  • The answer is obvious... (Score:5, Funny)

    by cmpkilla ( 47878 ) <cp1134NO@SPAMnullcell.net> on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:15PM (#12425078)
    change the name to Liger!

  • "Tiger-Cats"? (Score:5, Funny)

    by PaxTech ( 103481 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:15PM (#12425084) Homepage
    -1, Redundant.

  • Can I TM "the"? (Score:5, Funny)

    by lilmouse ( 310335 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:16PM (#12425088)
    I want an exclusive trademark on the word "the". Sounds like a good name for my company. Any other company that tries to use that name will have to pay me money :-P

    --LWM

  • Red Hat getting in on the PR (Score:5, Insightful)

    by winkydink ( 650484 ) * <sv.dude@gmail.com> on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:16PM (#12425090) Homepage Journal
    Nothing more.

    While Tiger Direct has a (if somewhat sleazy) case, there's little confusion between a football team and computer sw. This is just Red Hat attempting to cash in on the PR surrounding this while looking like a good guy.

  • Young Doesn't understand trademark (Score:5, Informative)

    by LetterRip ( 30937 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:17PM (#12425105)
    Trademark is generally only relevant for trade done in a specific domain - so usage of Tiger for a football franchise won't disallow another company to use football as a software reseller.

    Where Apple potentially gets in trouble is that there is a company that is a software reseller that is doing business under the trademark of Tiger. Whether Apples line of business and Tiger Direct are closely enough related that the courts would disallow Apples usage of the trademark is unclear.

    LetterRip

  • It won't work... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by John Seminal ( 698722 )
    The Tigers football team can't be mistaken with TigerDirect computer supplies. Apple Tiger can be mistaken, they are in the same industry.

    Nice move, but it is moot.

    Now for my opinion. I think it is all BS. Apple is clearly not trying to take anything away from TigerDirect (who btw, has pretty damn good prices, and if you call them, often you can wiggle the price down more if you tell them you are a small buisness, get an account executive, not the sales data entry guy).

    But TigerDirect must defend it

  • Computers (Score:2, Insightful)

    by northcat ( 827059 )
    This is not just about the word "Tiger" but the use of that word with computers. I don't think that football team has much to do with computers. I bet there are a shit load of companies/products with the name "Tiger". This lawsuit has to do with the use of that word in the context of computers. And BTW, wasn't this lawsuit in USA? How can a Canadian company solve this by licensing the name?

  • hmph (Score:5, Insightful)

    by namekuseijin ( 604504 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:19PM (#12425132)
    if such companies are so eager to preserve a stupid trademark, why don't they do something to preserve their symbol: the tiger? He's in the brink of extinction, ya know?

  • It's not like Apple are changing their name (Score:3, Informative)

    by disposable60 ( 735022 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:19PM (#12425134) Journal
    It's not like Apple's changing its name to Tiger. It's just a code name for the CURRENT REV of their OS. It's gonna last, what, 8 months? Then it'll be some other big cat.
    BFD
  • Now I can sue all you biatches.

  • Fedora Vs Fedora (Score:4, Interesting)

    by deadmongrel ( 621467 ) * <karthik@poobal.net> on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:21PM (#12425168) Homepage
    Does anyone know what happened to the Fedora Vs Fedora Trademark Problem? http://www.fedora.info/redHat.shtml [fedora.info] I think this topic was posted on /. way back in 2003 http://slashdot.org/articles/03/11/20/1722215.shtm l?tid=110&tid=187 [slashdot.org] I am really surprised to see much info on how the issue got settled.
  • I'd be more interested to know what they'd have done if they were knocked out of top spot by Tiger Woods, claim that he don't have rights to his name? No. I think this is all a big publicity stunt to get the name TigerDirect into the news.

    That's totally besides the point that if I type the word 'tiger' into a search engine, I'd expect to see information about tigers... you know, the big cats.
  • "This lawsuit is a load of codswallop," said Mr. Young. "Nobody and no company should have the exclusive use of the word 'tiger.'"

    A company should however have the exclusive use of, say, the word 'fedora'.

    Frankly, even though Tiger has always struck me as a vaguely sleazy company, they do have something of a point.

    • Re:Codswallop? Who talks like that? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      A company should however have the exclusive use of, say, the word 'fedora'.

      Huh? When has Red Hat sued anyone over name "Fedora"? And AFAIK, It's "Fedora Red Hat", not plain old Fedora... not that RH really cares that much, it not being their actual cash cow (which would be RHEL).

  • Tiger Woods (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RetepMc ( 814214 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:26PM (#12425244)
    Reminds me of when Tiger Woods tried to stop a golf course from using its name "Tiger's Eye", which it was named way before Tiger Woods became Tiger Woods. He obviously lost, but he did manage to get Nike to remove all of it's products from the Pro Shop!

    • MOD PARENT TROLL (Score:3, Informative)

      by calambrac ( 722059 )

      Let's see:

      Tiger's Eye the golf course opened in 2000 [mbga.com], at the zenith of Woods' first great run. So it wasn't there 'way before Tiger Woods became Tiger Woods'.

      Also, a fairly thorough Google search of "Tiger Woods" with "Tiger's Eye" alone or along with "lawsuit", "dispute", "pro shop", "Nike", etc., turns up nothing. In contrast, Woods' dispute with an artist, a yacht company, and an advertising company all jump right out.

      So, unless you can provide a link, I call bullshit.

  • context (Score:4, Insightful)

    by frovingslosh ( 582462 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:29PM (#12425270)
    Mr. Young said. 'If anyone owns the exclusive rights to the word tiger with that much history and tradition, it's gotta be us.'"

    What a crock! The context of the use of the word (trademark) is important. This team was using it football, outside of the U.S. Tiger Direct trademarked it as a term applying to Software. For a company like Apple who has alread run aground of trademake issues when they used a name that conflicts with Apple Records and started dealing in the music industry, you would think they would have know better to at least do a simple search before grabbing a name was that clearly registered with the Trademark office. I hope Tiger Direct wins big on this one.

    Apples didn't invent the term "Apple". But they would agressively defend the use of the name or related names within the industry if others started using them. They should expect the same when they try to grab Tiger's registered property. Some hoser football team or even some cats in Asia don't change that.

  • I thought the basis of trademarks only applied when you were in a situation where confusion could occur. Nobody is going to confuse some Canadian football team with some baseball team from Detroit or some Operation System for Apple computers or some on-line store.

    I know TigerDirect is a computer store... however, I still fail to see how the name would cause customer confusion and as far as I know that is all that matters.

    I have a feeling the RedHat guy probably offered to give them a license mostly out o

  • Biteback (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:36PM (#12425362) Homepage Journal
    No consumer is going to mistake Apple's Tiger OS for Tiger-Direct's discount (IBM-compatible) hardware. T-D's suit is a frivolous PR grab, much like this Ti-Cat offer. I hope Jobs gets his OS PR into lots more venues as a result of this ridiculous lawsuit, which actually will build the Apple brand in T-D's market - where they do compete, under "Macintosh" vs. "PC" brands.

  • Is a dirivitive of tiger but almost no one knows it these days what with the virtual(this means in essence, not in fact) censorchip of the printed form of a tale regarding the heroic antics of one small South Indian boy in dealing with one rather threatening, "I won't eat you, this time", tiger.

    So put on your fancy new suit and call it Butter. You've even got a remaining few days of /. poll [slashdot.org] for exploitation.

  • Wrong subject (Score:3, Informative)

    by cfulmer ( 3166 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:44PM (#12425436) Journal
    IT'S NOT RED HAT -- it's Bob Young. Young isn't in Red Hat management any more.

    Geez... Why not just say "United States builds houses with Habitat for Humanity on Georgia," when you're talking about (former president) Jimmy Carter?

  • Still no mention of Tiger Electronics (LCD games, Furby, etc...) being pulled into the lawsuit arena yet. They've been stealing the "tiger" name since at least as long as Apple has been around.
  • There are 73 trademarks with the term "Tiger" in them in the "software" category.

    Tigerdirect's claim forTigerdirect [uspto.gov]was filed on Nov 14 2001.
    Apple's claim forTiger [uspto.gov] was filed on July 2, 2003.

    While it is obvious that Apple could not license the name from a football team in order to help their case because they are not the same "Goods and Services" section, [IANAL] I don't think they could license the name from one of the other people in the software section either. The whole point of trademarks is to avoid

  • TigerDirect (Score:5, Informative)

    by daniel_mcl ( 77919 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @04:56PM (#12425569)
    This is a bit offtopic, but I'd advise everyone to avoid doing business with TigerDirect. I ordered the parts for my current computer from them and a great number of them didn't work properly. Worse, most of the warranties are "in-kind;" i.e. "Your RAM doesn't work? That's okay, send it back and we'll send you more RAM that doesn't work."

    I also had to go out and buy a USB mouse because if I plug in devices in both PS/2 ports the computer won't boot properly, and the SATA hard drive I bought from them worked for all of two days before breaking.

    None of these are compatibility issues, by the way; I replaced the defective Tiger parts with the same brand parts from a reputable local store (where they were more expensive) and the computer worked. The reason Tiger's prices are so low is that they sell factory seconds, meaning parts which didn't pass the company's quality inspection, so most of the stuff you buy from TigerDirect is non-functioning.

  • Exxon (Esso) Mobil and Kellogs Tigers (Score:3, Funny)

    by HermanAB ( 661181 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @05:10PM (#12425743)
    Steve should go to Esso and put a Tiger in his tank, then head over to the convenience store and get a box of Kellogs cornflakes, then take them all to court...

  • Professor X Sues Apple ... (Score:3, Funny)

    by rewinn ( 647614 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @05:24PM (#12425890) Homepage
    "OS X" infringes his distinctive name, causing confusion among mutants worldwide!

  • Tiger Direct can suck it. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by EvilStein ( 414640 ) <spamNO@SPAMpbp.net> on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @05:48PM (#12426171)
    Add me to the list of people that will:
    * Never shop there
    * Tell my friends to never shop there
    * Email them and let them know why

    I'm sick of hearing about ridiculous lawsuits like this.

  • Be careful what you sue for... (Score:4, Informative)

    by ebrandsberg ( 75344 ) on Tuesday May 03, 2005 @10:33PM (#12428553)
    This reminds me of the famous McDonalds name incident from some years back, where McDonalds tried to force a restaurant named McMunchies to change it's name. That's when Lord MacDonald of the Clan Donald got into the act. Quoting from a press release at http://www.mcspotlight.org/media/press/clandonald_ jan97.html [mcspotlight.org]:

    Lord Macdonald of Macdonald, premier clan chief of Clan Donald, has appointed Ronald W McDonald to be Sergeant-Major at Arms of the Guardians of Clan Donald: the linear descendant of the chief's bodyguard. It will be open to all Macdonalds and their septs, dependents, and descendants, who are in good standing in the community. Successful applicants will be enlisted as Sergeants at Arms and issued with a Warrant in the form of a Certificate which is suitable for framing. The cost of membership is £1 (postal orders please) or £2 sterling for overseas applicants.

    Needless to say, history was on their side even more than it was with the Tiger name here. If you don't use an original name, don't expect to be protected like an original name.

  • Publicity Ploy (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Evets ( 629327 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2005 @03:30AM (#12429790) Homepage Journal
    Tiger Direct is getting everything they need by just announcing their intent to sue. They can settle out of court for nothing 5 months from now, but they successfully got themselves into the headlines of every trade journal for a 100 dollar filing fee.

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