Lindows has announced that it will change the name of its software product LINDOWS to LINSPIRE.  The announcement makes no mention of a settlement of the worldwide dispute with Microsoft and in fact suggests that the trial will go forward.  Microsoft has prevailed in several non-US jurisdictions.  Coverage here.

An aside: this dispute illustrates the somewhat obvious point about the global nature of the software marketplace.  Lindows’ hopes of prevailing in the U.S. litigation rests on its ability to establish whether, when MS adopted the WINDOWS trademark in the 80’s, was ‘windows’ a generic term for windowing software (regardless of whether WINDOWS has since become one of the most famous trademarks in the world).  However, the law and the history of industry terminology in other critical markets differ, and the conflict can be framed simply in some jurisidictions as WINDOWS OS vs LINDOWS OS.

A further aside: When I typed LINDOWS into Google, it asks “Did you mean ‘windows’?