"Saying that the court asked the wrong questions and therefore
arrived at the wrong answers in its preliminary injunction ruling
that allowed Lindows.com to continue to use the name Lindows,
Microsoft filed a motion for reconsideration late last week with
United States District Court for the Western District of
Washington.
"The court's original ruling, handed down on March 15, allowed
Lindows to continue to use its name for the company and the Linux
operating system it is developing, pending a trial. Lindows claims
that its operating system will not only run Linux applications, but
will also be able to run a broad range of Windows programs directly
from Linux.
"The ruling denied Microsoft's motion to bar Lindows from using
the name because Microsoft failed to provide enough proof that it
would be harmed by Lindows. Judge John C. Coughenour also wrote in
his opinion that Microsoft's claim to the Windows trademark might
be precarious, as the mark was both generic and had been rejected
multiple times by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office before its
approval in 1995. Coughenour declined to fully address the Windows
trademark issue in his opinion, however, writing that it was a
matter for a later date..."
