| By Maureen O'Gara |
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| March 19, 2004 12:00 AM EST |
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15,799 |
Lindows.com is complaining about Microsoft asking the Dutch court that forbid Lindows to sell or promote its operating system locally to fine the start-up 100,000 euros for letting its web site remain accessible to visitors from the Benelux.
Lindows was told to block it.
According to Lindows CEO Michael Robertson, it can't.
"Since visitors to our web site come from international ISPs, proxy servers, anonymizers and other methods," he said, "it is impossible for us to comply with such a broad order to block all visitors from [the] Benelux and Microsoft knows this. We have completely withdrawn our products from these markets and put notices on every page of our website, yet Microsoft is still asking that the judge fine us 100,000 euros per day because non-US visitors can view our US-based website. Microsoft's actions demonstrate this has nothing to do with protecting their Dutch trademark or confusion in the marketplace, but is simply an attempt to put us out of business."
Robertson claims it's an "example of Microsoft's orchestrated attempt to slow the adoption of Linux."
That being his position, his company is asking the US federal court hearing Microsoft's trademark infringement suit against Lindows to stop Microsoft's trademark suits in Europe by slapping it with an anti-suit injunction that would stay in force until the US suit is trashed out. Lindows also wants relief from foreign rulings to shut down its Web site, a declaration of non-enforceability, it says.
Lindows claims that without an injunction "Microsoft can effectively conduct an end-run around this court's jurisdiction and substitute the judgment of a foreign court for a United States jury." Microsoft has gone to the courts of Finland, France, Sweden, and Canada as well as Holland. Lindows says it's being threatened with two more suits.
Lindows has had more luck in the US than it has overseas up until now. What started out as a clear-cut infringement suit against Lindows has turned into Microsoft struggling to keep its Windows trademark. If the US court declares Microsoft's trademark invalid, the mark's foreign registrations wouldn't be enforceable either.
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