MandrakeSoft ordered to drop trademark

When surfing the web I found this short article about MandrakeSoft. In there it states that:

"The decision could force the Paris-based software company to surrender its trademark and domain names and to pay nearly $90,000 (70,000 euros) in damages to the U.S. companies, holders of the rights to the comic strip character Mandrake the Magician. The comic strip marks its 70th anniversary this year."
-Source Here

In other words Mandrake's name is being taken down and they have to pay a fine of €70,000 to the US because there happens to be a comic strip that has the same name as they do.

Don't you people belive that this has gone a bit to far?

"Mandrake" is a proper noun referring to a vegetable product:

"Mandrake" .n. Poisonous plant with emetic & narcotic properties, with root thought to resemble human form & to shriek when plucked............the word is French in origin?

IMHO if you really want Europe to tell the US that it does not rule the World................you are going in exactly the right direction?


Just a thought?

I belive very much that its extremly wrong for the USA to start fining European companies, especially becuase of some cartoon character that by chance happens to have the same name.
So if the USA was so offended by this name then why hadn't they said anything earlier. Instead they waited untill the cartoons 70th anniversery in order to make the whole thing seem a lot bigger.

Quote:

---

And Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them unto his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Give me, I pray thee, of thy son's mandrakes.
And she said unto her, Is it a small matter that thou hast taken my husband? and wouldest thou take away my son's mandrakes also? And Rachel said, Therefore he shall lie with thee to night for thy son's mandrakes.
And Jacob came out of the field in the evening, and Leah went out to meet him, and said, Thou must come in unto me; for surely I have hired thee with my son's mandrakes. And he lay with her that night.

---

http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/k...size=First+100

Why do people think they can own words that have been in use
for millenia?
:cool: