Neowin.net – Where unprofessional journalism looks better – Spaces vs. Spaces; Blog Name Games __ From all the logic I’m reading if MSN Spaces does not infringe on Edict Spaces, then we should see an IBM Winodws OS or a Sun Windows or a, gasp, Google Windows! Why does Microsoft dig these holes?
The two products are very different, aimed at entirely different markets, and are named differently. Neither of you calls your product “Spaces.”
It’s “Edict Spaces” and “MSN Spaces.”
In order for their to be trademark infringement, they have to prove that the name similarity causes confusion among customers. Somehow I doubt that’s the case.
related link:
via C. Coulter
Tor Hough from Edict told us that the first they heard about the clash was when customers asked if they’d sold their product to Microsoft. “We were stunned! On Dec 2nd when Microsoft launched their service in the US a search of “Spaces and Weblog” on MSN or Google returned us on the first page of results. We are baffled that Microsoft could have missed the overlap in names. As they continue to ignore our attempts to communicate with them, we’ve begun to speculate that knew about us and simply don’t care.”
Edict’s letters to Microsoft have so far gone un-answered, and they’ve received no direct contact from the company. Edict told us that lawyers had commented that their case was “strong”, but legal costs would be high against one of the worlds biggest software companies; perhaps too high for the company to even contemplate. Interestingly, Edict found it surprisingly difficult to get help from a law firm that didn’t have a conflict of interest by having Microsoft on the books.
We asked Microsoft about this rather ‘amazing’ coincidence; a spokesperson for the company told us “When determining naming for product offerings, MSN takes appropriate steps to ensure naming does not infringe on the trademark rights of any third party, as is the case with the naming of MSN Spaces.” They declined to answer questions about whether the similarity in names was simply a coincidence or whether the company would be considering a name change for its blogging service. At best, this incident represents a tremendous lack of research in the MSN PR department; one hopes this isn’t the case. Expect more to come in the coming weeks. — Coulter
The first quoted bit gets a lot wrong, trademark-wise. Most importantly, the touchstone of trademark infringement is “likelihood of confusion,” not that the party claiming that their mark is being infringed has “to prove that the name similarity causes confusion among customers.” This “proof”, more properly labeled “actual confusion,” is the strongest evidence (obviously) of likelihood of confusion, but it’s not a requirement for a successful infringement action.
The rest of the comment attempts to be definitive, but overemphasizes certain areas and, I think, evaluates the situation incorrectly. Both MSN and Edict provide blogging functionality. Therefore, they are both directed at similar markets.
In addition, while the use of a corporate name does serve to help differentiate the marks, this is not dispositive, particularly when the marks are identical. It’s only of marginal importance. If it were more important, we would see things like IBM Macintosh or Apple Thinkpad, for example.
Moreover, Edict can show actual consumer confusion. While this is only one of a number of several factors, it’s much stronger than, for example, the fact that they use their corporate names in conjunction with their marks.
My guess, without Googling to see the frequency of use of “Spaces” for similar services, is that MS counsel thought Spaces was descriptive of the services and probably part of a crowded market so the mark was weak and Edict wouldn’t have the ability to stop new users of the mark.