no suprise here...

TigerDirect (computer hardware supply place ala CDW) tried to sue Apple last month over the use of the name "Tiger" and their use of tiger stripes in their advertising.

suprisingly, THEY LOST.

ok, i'm not suprised. i was more suprised that they would even attempt such a silly and frivolous lawsuit.

hell, when i was reading thru the article, the court was rather impressed with the following:

Apple also entered into evidence a survey that revealed only 6% of consumers associated the name "Tiger" with TigerDirect. Meanwhile, the survey of 517 people showed that only 4 people associated the name "Tiger" with a company -- a result the Court found most interesting. Apple asserted that TigerDirect does not posses a protected family of Tiger marks, as defined by applicable trademark law, nor does it retain a valid Tiger mark for computer goods.

you know something? the first things that popped into my mind when i read that is this:

• Exxon - their logo is a tiger
  
• Tony the Tiger - don't think i need to explain this one
  
• Princeton Tigers - i have family that graduated from there, plus a pretty good lacrosse program
  

something told me this wasn't going to fly...and what about the Cincinnati Bungles?

it's times like these where i really wish that courts would fine companies for such foolish lawsuits. say $500k to $1M, and the money has to goto a general education fund that then divides the money for each state based on number of students/number of schools. this way larger states (california) receive a larger piece than smaller states (rhode island). now if all companies that files these frivolous lawsuits were fined in such a manner, short term, it would help the schools with their ongoing budget crunches...

the idea being school districts are not allowed to plan on this as an annual financial windfall, as if it were to actually work, in theory, there would be less stupid lawsuits, followed by a more efficient use of court resources, and that whole "right to a speedy trial" thing could actually happen.