
When Microsoft Threatened to Sue Us Over the Letter “E” - benackles
http://steveblank.com/2012/08/20/when-microsoft-sued-us-over-the-letter-e/
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s_henry_paulson
Standard operating procedure.

Everyone knows that if you don't try to protect your trademark, you end up
losing it.

The logos are somewhat similar, and I'm also not surprised that nothing came
of this.

The "threat to sue over the letter 'e'" is an exaggeration to get pageviews,
and this article should be deleted.

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smokeyj
Title should be "threat to sue over the letter 'e', with arrow above it. Game
changer!

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Dylan16807
I don't know. IE's logo certainly doesn't have an arrow above it.

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larrys
"somehow had saved what he claims was my response to Microsoft’s legal threat
and sent it me."

While I understand how the response was many years ago, I fail to see how
someone couldn't verify a letter that they wrote (it tends to be easy at least
to know your style of writing and it's hard to believe he wouldn't remember
writing to Gates about this). And what was the form of this letter (a printout
of an old email, a copy of a physical letter, something hand written)?
Certainly Doug didn't verbally remind him. There must have been something
physical to look at.

His letter by the way is naive with respect to trademark law. Microsoft most
likely wasn't objecting to the "e" but the stylized element above the "e".
Steve's letter addresses only the "E".

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ActVen
This is a great example of standing up for yourself while emphasizing the
mutual interest of both parties. As this letter helps demonstrate, sometimes
reacting with humor and kindness is the best way to deal posturing.

~~~
larrys
"reacting with humor"

Well first this was a letter allegedly (Blank doesn't fully verify, he says,
"he claimed was my response" which as I pointed out in my other post is a
little strange) sent to Gates and the use of humor is somewhat patronizing.
Not the mention the fact that if you are hoping for Gates to call off his
legal dogs (and once again I don't know the relationship between Gates and
Blank) using humor could very well not be the correct way to do it. Because it
make someone (probably not Gates of course) feel stupid.

Let's say for example a well know internet industry person decides to write to
PG about something going on at a company that he just picked for a YC class.
PG thinks his organization is picking winners. And now you write him a letter
essentially saying "the children you put in charge at Babbozify are ..." (and
insert something you think shows they have no clue). How is PG going to feel?
How would the average person feel about this? People don't want to be told
people they put trust in are doing stupid things. And if you do this you have
to be very careful to show concern and not be belittling.

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ActVen
I think you missed two key words in my comment:"sometimes" and "reacting". I
didn't say it worked for every situation (see word #1). Your counter example
isn't relevant to what I was stating either since it wasn't a response to an
empty threat (see word #2).

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drucken
I would be far more interested in reading the original Microsoft legal letter
to E.piphany and the detail of the claim.

I highly doubt it was over just a letter...

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tommoor
Reminds me of of the description of Abraham Lincoln in How to Win Friends,
although I guess here Steve wasn't the one that decided not sent the letter -
it seems like it was a wise choice either way!

For those that haven't read, a good description:
<http://www.lettersneversent.com/pages/about/index.php>

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keithpeter
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Void>

Fortunately Georges Perec had already prepared a book that would circumvent
Microsoft's claim on the letter E.

I imagine the inherent daftness of the situation became apparent and the
Microsofties just forgot about the case...

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b0b0b0b
Has he told the story behind the dot? Better than this story IMHO.

