"Who was the first to actually use a mouse, or call it a mouse, with a computer? If that was Apple could they not sue M&M?"

It was Xerox

that Apple actually took the correct route here, and if anyone is skating on thin ice it would be M M as Mighty Mouse isn't your "typical" trademark. Things that are as iconic as Mighty Mouse are a little tough to restrict to a specific market segment.

Apple licensed Mighty Mouse from its owners. No company that sells a mouse other than Apple can lay claim to the name. M&M did not license it, Apple did. M&M is using it unlawfully. They will be forced to change the name.

Idiots.

The original article says both companies were licensing the name from CBS, the original owner of the name. If M&M has an issue with another company using it, shouldn't it be on the head of CBS that it allowed two companies to use it for a similar product? Why should it be Apple's responsibility to do the work of CBS?

I hope they get nuked and then urinated on!

"But that doesn't matter, since the point of contention is that they claim CBS doesn't own the rights to the name "Mighty Mouse" as it covers computer equipment. Just like Apple can't go suing some furniture company for calling their desk "the Macintosh" or MS suing Pella for using the term "Windows"."

Not quite.

Macintosh and Windows are common words. Mighty Mouse is a trademarked name. That combination of words is not common in the English language except where it refers to a particular cartoon character.

A better comparison would be to micro and soft, each part is commonly used, but not together. Good luck trying to market a pillow as "Microsoft Pillow" and not getting sued.

Apple needs a new name for it's mouse anyway. I hate Mighty Mouse. The mouse looks more like it should be called the gSpot or the iSpot. Massage the little round nib and watch it quiver!

Other names that are cool:

More Mouse, Apple Mouse Deluxe, House Mouse.

Apple doesn't call their keyboard anything special just call the thing a mouse why don't you. Wired and wireless variety.

Doh!

Xerox had little to nothing to do with the development of the mouse: that was Stanford Research Institute (just up the road from me) - the device originally had a cord hanging off the back (like a mouse tail) hence the name. Rank Xerox shipped the first commercial device with suck a pointing device but the myth that Xerox had "A Mac (or a Lisa) in a box" that Apple copied is just copied is just that: myth, fantasy, cuckoo.

so what if cbs didn't sue them then? presumably, since apple licenced it, cbs still owns the trademark to "mighty mouse."

why didn't, in good faith, m&m ask cbs back then to use the name? presumably because they thought, "oh we're making a computer device so it doesn't matter"? of course, that careless decision is now causing them headaches.

and no, you can't use the name "macintosh" because it's trademarked by apple. you can perhaps use "mcintosh" or "mackintosh".

"I hate these types of comments. Do you know the whole history of this case? Usually lawsuits are NOT the first action one company takes against another (believe it or not)"

uh, do you know the story of this case? yes? no? do you know if this was or wasn't the first thing this company did for a fact? yes? no? do you know for a fact that they didn't research their options and then decide to sue or are you going with "usually" as a fact?

"But, no, apparently you'd prefer them to sue immediately (oh, right, you'd prefer them not suing at all"

and you got all of that from one sentence? do you have some kind of crystal ball that allows you some special insight to one's preferences from a single sentence?

The reason that Xerox PARC gets so much attention as the "originator" of cool things like mice, windowing systems, etc is that the guys who actually developed all this all went at some time to also work at Xerox PARC. Lots of this stuff was developed or thought of before they went there but they brought it along and people assume that it was developed at Xerox PARC. Windowing systems were like this. The one guy who Apple later hired had come up with his graphics and windowing ideas and brought them to Xerox PARC where they were further worked on. This same guy later went to work at Apple. (Jef Raskin)

I believe something similar happened with the mouse. Developed pre Xerox but brought to fame at Xerox.

The products that would become the mouse and the Mac were developed by Apple based on the original basic designs from Xerox (and whoever had developed it previously). Apple purchased them legally, Xerox didn' want to follow up on it and Apple put a lot of development into the whole thing to make it what it became. Therefore, there is not reason Xerox has any right to sue Apple for anything. Apple didn't steal anything. And, Apple was the brains behind it's final products. SO THERE!

Apple is dead anyway, so sell the stock and give it back to Xerox. lol!

i've read that the thing about the windowing system is that xerox's prototypes did NOT have moveable windows. the people at apple however did not know this and i believe it was a guy named atkinson who said basically, hey, if they can do it i can do. so he created quickdraw, not knowing that it hadn't been done before.could be folklore but, if true, an interesting story!

The Star had moveable windows, but not overlapping ones (see also Windows) - overlapping was one of the items that Apple brought up in their lawsuit vs. MS.

Quickdraw was a total Apple creation, including the wonderful idea that a monitor could be 34x34 foot: a concept that made multiple monitors simple to do on the Mac, whereas Windows needed many years (and access to Apple patents) to do the same.