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It became clear to an Australia man a couple of weeks after the fact that Microsoft legal representatives hadn't been exactly forthcoming about the purpose of having him sign over the rights to a product name. What he thought was a trademark case, turned out to be "give us that!" case.

The Seattle Post Intelligencer tells the story of Adam Lyttle, a 22-year-old developer who'd created a security software dubbed "Windows Defender," that prevented websites from making changes to computer settings.

After a call from Microsoft's legal team informing him the name was a trademark infringement, he signed over rights to the name. A short while later, Microsoft launched their new anti-spyware program named (what else?) Windows Defender.

Lyttle said they never mentioned wanting to use the name, only that the use of "Windows" was an infringement on their trademark, which of course, it was. Lyttle said he wasn't interested in fighting the software giant in court and was happy to give them name. He just wished they'd told him, even if they had no legal obligation to do so.

More information is available at Seattle PI's website.