CNNMoney.com
Companies Economy International Corrections Pre-market trading After-hours trading Winners/losers/actives Bonds Currencies Commodities Money Magazine Retirement Mutual Funds Taxes Ask the Expert Money 101 Autos Loan Center Best Places to Live Calculators Mortgage Rates Personal tech Big Tech blog Techland blog Sectors and stocks Fortune 500 techs Tech Talk 100 best places to launch Ultimate resource guide Small biz makeovers FSB 100 Ask & Answer Fortune 500 Technology Investing Management Rankings Main Create portfolio Edit portfolio Create Alerts Edit Alerts
 
Motorola fights for "Razr" name
Apparently, some people are prone to confusing cell phones with scooters. That must be why Motorola is fighting with scooter maker Razor USA over its use of the "Razr" name. Back in 2004, Motorola licensed trademark rights to the "Razr" name for its ultrathin flip phone from Razor, a deal that's set to expire in October. Rather than continue the license, though, Motorola plans to change the phone's name to "Motorazr." Razor isn't happy, and the dispute has escalated to the point that Motorola has filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against the scooter maker. Motorola, in the lawsuit, noted that it was "expend[ing] substantial funds" to make the switch to the slightly revised "Motorazr" name. Why anyone would be confused by the products is something of a head-scratcher, since they share little beyond the ability to fold up.
Posted by Owen Thomas 12:45 PM 1 Comments comment | Add a Comment

It's purely the litigous nature of Razor USA. They have a history of staking broad claims. Razor USA is a lot like some of these cybersquatters who sit on web site names (URLs). They sit around all day thinking of stuff that is close to thier name and then stake claim to it despite EVER having any intentions of producing a real product. RAZR is an excellent example. Razor USA staked claim on that as a telecommunications device. What the hell is this scooter maker doing with a claim for a telecommunications device? It's just a lazy way of extorting money from companies that invest money and time in actually creating a product. Once it's established in the market then they swoop in with trademark infringement claims.
Posted By Todd Lewis, St. Louis, MO : 3:25 PM  

To send a letter to the editor about The Browser, click hereTop of page

Got a news tip? Send it to The Browser


© 2008 Cable News Network. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Privacy Policy
Copyright © 2008 BigCharts.com Inc. All rights reserved. Please see our Terms of Use.
MarketWatch, the MarketWatch logo, and BigCharts are registered trademarks of MarketWatch, Inc.
Intraday data delayed 15 minutes for Nasdaq, and 20 minutes for other exchanges. All Times are ET.
Intraday data provided by Interactive Data Real-Time Services and subject to the Terms of Use.
Historical, current end-of-day data, and splits data provided by Interactive Data Pricing and Reference Data.
Fundamental data provided by Hemscott.
SEC Filings data provided by Edgar Online Inc..
Earnings data provided by FactSet CallStreet, LLC.