| Software giant Microsoft has begun legal proceedings against itself for copyright infringement, The Ferret can reveal.
In November 2005, two Microsoft department heads Leon Schaeffer (Office Suite Development) and Brian Coffey (Games and Accessory Applications) independently hit upon the name 'Colleague' for new software products their respective departments were developing. The former chose the appellation for a human resources management package, the latter for a teamwork-themed game to ship with the next version of Windows, codenamed Longhorn.
They each duly registered the name as a Microsoft trademark, both internally and with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. However, because of the company's enormous size and the huge quantity of internal memoranda flowing daily through its Washington State headquarters, the conflict was overlooked until the end-of-year review by Microsoft's Legal Department.
Sandra Fisher, Deputy Head of Legal Monitoring, was first to spot the problem, on December 30, 2005. "By January 12 of this year, we had come to the conclusion that we had no option but to sue ourselves," Fisher told us. "It wouldn't do to consider it a special case purely by dint of its being reflexive. The Microsoft name and all its registered trademarks constitute an asset of goodwill and recognition, and to allow this asset to be plundered, even by its own proprietor, is not good business practice."
The company is confident that "justice will be served," in Fisher's words, and that the courts will find in Microsoft's favour.
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