The FINANCIAL — Information Designs LLC., a small Missouri company with the word "Bing" in its name has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft, alleging that it is unfairly using the Bing name Microsoft chose to relaunch their popular search engine as.
Bing Information Design filed the case in a St. Louis circuit court this week, seeking damages including corrective advertising paid for by Microsoft to eliminate confusion between the brands, the company's law firm said in a statement on Thursday, according to PC World.
The design company, which offers computer-related illustrations and other services, has used the name Bing since 2000 and applied to register the trademark "Bing" on May 26, according to U.S. Patent and Trademark Office records, the same source reports. The USPTO initially refused the application on Aug. 25, giving the company six months to file supporting information.
According to After Dawn Bing alleges trademark infringement as well as unfair competition, claiming "Microsoft's use of the name dilutes the value of it and confuses the public about the companies' relationship to each other." The design company is looking for "actual and punitive damages including having Microsoft pay for corrective advertising to remedy the confusion it caused." The actual monetary amount was not disclosed.
Microsoft filed its application for the trademark "Bing" (without the exclamation mark) on March 2, PC World informs. Microsoft's use of the name Bing and its aggressive advertising have "gutted" efforts by the small design company to distinguish itself, the statement said. Bing.biz, a Web site linked to in the statement, showed sample graphics from the company and gave the job titles of its two principals as "overlord-in-chief" and "the brains behind the operation."
Although not yet served with the complaint, Microsoft has commented that it does not believe there is any confusion in the marketplace between the two companies and/or their respective business angles, The Tech Herald reports. “We believe this suit to be without merit and we do not believe there is any confusion in the marketplace with regard to the complainant’s offerings and Microsoft’s Bing,” said Microsoft spokesman Kevin Kutz. “We respect trademarks and other people’s intellectual property, and look forward to the next steps in the judicial process,” he added.
According to Guardian, in addition, two other companies are also taking action against Microsoft over what they say are trademark infringements: a web-based shopping service called BongoBing and software company Terabyte, which has a product called BootIt Next Generation, or Bing for short.
Meant to challenge Google Inc.'s (GOOG) dominance in Internet search, the Bing search engine has won Microsoft credibility in the search sector as it gained market share, though its inroads are mostly coming out of smaller competitors' share rather than Google's, The Wall Street Journal reports. Recently, Bing's share of the search market was just under 10%, according to a couple of sources.
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