Northampton inventor's Microsoft trademark dispute 'resolved'

A dispute with Microsoft over the name of a device to help child literacy has been resolved by dropping an "s", its inventor said.

Kate McKenzie, from Duston, Northampton, created a tool called Word Windows, which will now be known as Word Window.

She said Microsoft had opposed her trademark but she could now launch the product with the new name.

She said she would be "getting on with what we wanted to do from the start".

The tool puts a box around a word and creates a window that can open and close to isolate it.

"The premise is you can put on top of the book your child is reading so you can reduce it so you can read with whatever bit of the word they are struggling with," Mrs McKenzie said.

She said she created the device as she struggled with reading at school due to dyslexia and her son was facing similar issues.

Nine days before the product was due to go to market, on 1 July, she received a letter from lawyers representing Microsoft.

But she told BBC Radio Northampton: "Everything is now resolved, the packaging has been reprinted, all the bits and pieces have been changed in terms of the website."

Mrs McKenzie said although the name has slightly changed "the product is the same".

She will be launching the invention at Northamptonshire Central Library, in Northampton, on Saturday, which she was "feeling a little bit nervous about".

Mrs McKenzie said: "One of the aspects of my dyslexia is I can find myself stumbling and stuttering over words.

"But the actual chance to launch the business to get started and to start to help parents and the children is very exciting."

Microsoft previously said to the BBC that it "cannot comment on ongoing legal matters".

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