[SunRescue] Slightly [OT], Sun's legal battles

[bobk]

On Mon, 17 Apr 2000, Maarten Deen wrote:

> Sun's legal battling may not be over.
> 
> I was flying to London today, and leaving Duesseldrof airport I saw a
> plane with written on it in large letters 'Sunexpress'. My first thought
> was of course 'Hey, does Sun have corporate planes for their employees?'
> The plane in question was a boeing 737-200, too large I think to be just
> a plane for Scott.

I dunno, he has to cart hsi ego around in something....

> Then I noticed the little Turkish flag, and thought 'Sun is not going to
> like that!'.

Sun Microsystems doesn't have to like it. A single word such as 'sun' can
be used by a variety of companies. It depends on the amount of confusion
that could be caused in the mind of a reasonable person:

1) Only you would think that Sun Microsystems had branched into the
airline business ;) (On the other hand, Virgin Records did....)

2) Even if Sun Microsystems decided to sue a company using the name "Sun
Computer Sales", Sun Microsystems would probably lose, if the other
company had a halfway competent lawyer. This is assuming that Sun Computer
sales hadn't adopted any other mark or had a mark similar to Sun
Microsystems, nor could be shown trying to cause consumers to think that
they were Sun Microsystems.

3) If Sun Microsystems tried to sue The Sun Tuna Cannery, they would be
laughed out of court, and possibly fined.

-bob keyes
damned yankee