Microsoft settles trademark case
The software giant is paying $5 million to settle a trademark dispute challenging its use of the name "Internet Explorer" for its Web browser.
"This will clear up any questions about Microsoft's right to use the name 'Internet Explorer,'" said Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan.
As previously reported, software developer Dhiren Rana sued Microsoft in late 1995 for trademark infringement a few months after the company began marketing its new browser under the name Internet Explorer. Rana alleged that, beginning in 1994, he had applied the name to a competing Web browser he had designed for SyNet, an Illinois Internet service provider that has since gone bankrupt.
Rana could not be reached for comment.
Microsoft had argued that the Internet Explorer name was generic--similar to terms such as "aspirin" or "database"--and therefore not eligible for trademark status. It had asked U.S. District Judge Charles Norgle Sr. of Chicago to dismiss the case, and had petitioned the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to block Rana's application.
Microsoft now is in the unusual position of applying for a registration it has vigorously opposed for more than two years. Although other companies that may have their eye on the mark are free to adopt Microsoft's argument that "Internet Explorer" is ineligible for trademark status, there is little doubt that the software giant will be able use the name, according to Mitchell Zimmerman, a trademark attorney at Fenwick & West.
"One way or the other, they'll be able to protect it," Zimmerman said.