Office 97 debut hits sour note as 3M files suit over Post-It tag

With the official release of Office 97 in New York due tomorrow, Microsoft has been hit by a trademark infringement lawsuit from 3M, maker of the ubiquitous sticky yellow Post-It notes. In a suit filed in Minnesota Federal Court, 3M claims Office 97 infringes its trademark by including a feature that allows users to create icons of ?yellow adhesive notes? very similar to those of 3M?s Post-It Software Notes sold under the Post-It mark. The company is seeking to prevent Microsoft from including the feature in its software, as well as seeking so-far unspecified damages and compensation. A representative of 3M said that the company had worked closely with Microsoft in the past and had shown it early versions of its own Post-It Software Notes. But a Microsoft representative said the claim had no merit. ?Microsoft don?t have a product named Post-It; we don?t have a feature called Post-It; we don?t use the phrase Post-It anywhere in our advertising or marketing,? he said. The 3M suit alleges that users of Office 97 can access the notes feature by typing ?Post-It? or ?3M Post-It?. The Microsoft representative said the only place the term ?Post-It? is used is in the Help function (see Story, Page 3). J Microsoft is set to battle for market share with Intel after launching its Talisman 3D graphics co-processor only a week after the chip giant announced its MMX extensions and said that ?exotic? co-processors had little future.