Microsoft: We didn't 'forget' Azure trademark

Company maintains it filed trademark application on Friday

By Gregg Keizer

October 28, 2008 12:00 PM ET

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Microsoft's Azure

Computerworld - Microsoft Corp. late Monday denied it had neglected to register "Windows Azure," the name of its new cloud computing platform, with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

According to a spokeswoman, Microsoft submitted a trademark application for Azure last Friday.

Earlier Monday, Ray Ozzie, the company's chief software architect, unveiled Windows Azure, a cloud computing version of its operating system. Azure, which will compete with Amazon.com Inc.'s Elastic Compute Cloud, targets developers who create online services and software.

Searches on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office database run throughout Monday failed to find either "Windows Azure" or "Azure Services Platform" as registered trademarks. Microsoft used both names to describe its software and services technology.

The spokeswoman laid the blame on the agency. "I can tell you that it is absolutely not correct that Microsoft 'forgot' to register the trademark," she said in an e-mail. "It is up to the Patent Office to update its database, but you will see it listed there shortly, if not already."

Searches on the Patent Office database done at 11 p.m. EDT Monday, however, continued to come up empty.

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