Dutch judge bars Lindows name

After Finland and Sweden, Linux vendor Lindows.com Inc. now is also barred from using the Lindows name in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg because the name looks too much like Microsoft Corp.’s Windows.

In a case brought by Microsoft, an Amsterdam District Court judge on Thursday ruled that Lindows.com’s use of the terms Lindows, LindowsOS and Lindows.com violates the Benelux Merkenwet, the branding law for Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

Lindows.com has eight days to inform its regional distributors of the ruling and stop distributing, selling and advertising its software under the Lindows name. Furthermore, all inventories have to be exported from the region and all orders for products bearing the Lindows name into the region have to be halted. Lindows.com also has to make its Web site inaccessible to users from the three countries, according to a copy of the ruling.

Lindows.com can appeal the ruling. However, the company has yet to review the ruling and has not made a decision yet, a spokeswoman said. Lindows.com faces a fine of €1,000 ($1,250) for each day it does not comply with the ruling with a maximum of €90,000, according to the ruling.

European courts appear to be siding with Microsoft. The Redmond, Washington, company lost two requests for an injunction barring Lindows.com from using the Lindows name in the U.S. and the matter is now for a jury to decide in a trial set for March 1 in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

Microsoft sued Lindows.com in the U.S. in December 2001, accusing the company of infringing its Windows trademark and asking the court to bar Lindows.com from using the Lindows name. Judges in Finland and Sweden granted preliminary injunctions late last year.

“This is only about the Lindows name, a clear example of trademark infringement. Our goal is not to stop Lindows from selling competing products, it is simply asking them to change their name,” Microsoft spokeswoman Stacy Drake said.

Lindows.com Chief Executive Officer Michael Robertson, in a statement issued in response to the Swedish injunction last year, lashed out against Microsoft’s legal pursuit of his company, accusing Microsoft of using lawsuits “as a battering ram to smash Linux.”