Microsoft Trademarks The Trademark Symbol

[Red Squirrel]

REDMOND, Wash (UPI) - Software and marketing giant Microsoft
Corporation (MSFT) announced today that it has purchased the rights
to the well-known "trademark" symbol, formerly denoted as "tm" in
most print media.

The symbol is commonly used to identify commercial product names
that have not yet been registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office.

"It was a natural," commented John Schexnader, of Microsoft's
Ministry of Information. "Several of us were sitting around after a
board meeting a few months ago, and we were talking about what we
should buy next. We were tossing around the idea of purchasing a
country or two in South America, as kind of a follow-up to Sun
Microsystems' trademark-infringement claim against The Island
Formerly Known As Java, when it occurred to us that there are no
countries named 'ActiveX.' We talked about changing the name of
'ActiveX' to 'Chile' or 'Brazil' -- which would also help distance
it from all those recently-uncovered security holes -- when someone
joked that we'd save a lot of time and effort in the long run if we'd
just trademark the trademark symbol."

Schexnader continued, "At first, we all just laughed -- but one look
at Bill's face, and we knew we'd be on the phone with the Patent and
Trademark Office in the morning."

Microsoft hasn't wasted any time enforcing the new trademark.
According Rue B. Goldberg, an attorney with Microsoft's Ministry of
Litigation and Law Enforcement, "Use of the 'tm' symbol will now be
restricted to Microsoft and its subsidiaries, like the Catholic
Church."

But companies wishing to use the '™' symbol will not be left out
in the cold; according to Goldberg, Microsoft has developed a new
symbol, '(tMS)', to replace the now-restricted '™' symbol.

"Anyone will be able to use the new symbol, royalty-free," states
Goldberg, "though Microsoft reserves the right to charge for its use
in the future."

Response to the announcement was varied. Apple Computer CEO Gil
Amelio vowed to take the issue to court, stating, "Apple Computer
developed the technology for the trademark symbol more than ten
years ago," but refused to give any details on the exact nature of
the lawsuit.

Meanwhile, Times-Mirror Publishing, Ziff-Davis, the L.A. Times, the
N.Y. Times, CNN, the Washington Post, Newsweek, and Kathy Lee
Gifford all agreed that it was a landmark move. According to William
Spangler, Electronics and Pet Food Editor for the Boston Globe,
"[Microsoft's] recent acquisition of the trademark symbol will
benefit computer users worldwide. It's a technological breakthrough.
As always, the rest of the computer industry is just struggling to
play catch-up."

So, what does the future hold for Microsoft and its latest
acquisition? Microsoft Ministry of Information spokeswoman Alice
Gilbert says that Microsoft is moving quickly on similar purchases.
"Our next [acquisition] will be the 'service mark' symbol. We
already have the paperwork in place for it." Gilbert stated that the
new symbol would be 'sMS', following the trend set by the new
trademark symbol.

"It's a natural for us," concluded Gilbert. But apparently, the sky
is not the limit at Microsoft. "We'd also looked into acquiring the
rights to the 'registered' trademark symbol, but several
representatives from the Ministry of Technology determined that
doing so would lead to an infinite loop in the trademark registry --
and the only place where we permit infinite loops is in our
software. Our standards are very high here at Microsoft."

But that fact has not deterred the software and marketing giant.
"Instead, we're looking into purchasing the entire Patent and
Trademark Office," stated Schexnader.

No one at the Patent and Trademark Office could be reached for
comment Tuesday.


Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:154, old post ID:541