[Wayne Luke]

Originally Posted by GoTTi

for instance, www.mikerowesoft.com. this was from a kid, who happend to have the name Mike Rowe, and decided to make that domain name, and m$ got fumed, tried to take it from him and lost. from what happend though, i think Mike got a lifetime membership to their programmer site and schooling and training to not market the name or some junk...i dunno. whatever it was, m$ was not able to get the site from him.

Actually, there is legal justification and use of a trademark in a domain name is valid. Microsoft lost this case because:

1) It was the person's legal name. In the United States, legal surnames trump trademarks.

2) It was deemed dissimilar enough not to create commercial confusion. In order to enforce trademark violation, the entity whose trademark is being used incorrectly must prove that the use is causing them financial losses. Mikerowesoft.com was not causing documentable financial loss. If he had been peddling his own version of a Linux desktop called "Doors" (Open the Doorways to the imagination), then he would have lost.

To find proof of case #2, you only have to look at Lindows. A linux distribution purported to be as easy to use as Windows. Microsoft sued them for similarity of trademark and they were forced to change their name. Trademark is the entire basis of every anti-domain squatting law in the United States and Europe.