[rhizome]

which is called "trade dress" and is much more difficult for fluke to prevail on.

[gonzo]

though they did.

[rasz_pl]

No they didnt. Nobody questioned their bogus trademark yet.

Sparkfun isnt exactly in ideal position to fight Fluke, after all they very well might make a ton of money selling Fluke gear in the future. No point getting hostile over ~$20K.

Fluke received a trademark for a item design that WAS ALREADY IN USE for at least 20 years. Trademark in the center of all this is ~"dark case, yellow face". They didnt even come up with the design first. Look at the second one from the top: http://www.stevenjohnson.com/apparatusdesignco/index.html

Fluke multimeters started white/gray/beige, then went black, then yellow. Yellow on black is new to fluke.

Basically they STOLE generic, already used design and trademarked it same way one click and round corners received US Patents.

[darklajid]

Nitpicking: I think you have the colors wrong - it's "yellow case, dark face" as far as I understand. Not that it makes a huge difference..

[rasz_pl]

Yep, realized it just now :D still trademark was granted in 2003, and if you do a google seatch with date limit set to 2002 you will find plenty of multimeters with that look, Fluke was granted retroactive trademark for a look that was generic at the time. Its like Ford receiving 4 door car trademark :/