But that hasn’t stopped Microsoft from messing around with a little plastic reading tool created by a Northampton teacher. Kate McKenzie has found herself in a trademark dispute with the tech company over her children’s literacy device, Word Windows. The plastic tool can be placed on top of a book page to isolate individual words, letters and their sounds in a window to help children and adults with dyslexia. Shortly before launching her product in July, McKenzie, 40, received a letter from Microsoft. “I thought I was home, but then they contacted me to say they objected to the business name and trademark, which was a double whammy,” he said. “It was obviously scary. My heart just sank. It’s been a two-year process to get to this point, it’s so hard to bring a product to market, there’s so little funding out there. “I just thought, ‘Oh my God, what am I going to do now?’ You can’t beat Microsoft if you don’t have deep pockets.” McKenzie said it would be difficult to change the name of her product as she had already spent money on packaging, branding and manufacturing. Although the letter left her with her head in her hands, she said her husband managed to see the funny side of the Microsoft lawyers sweeping the Northampton suburbs. “He had a little laugh about it,” she said. “Don’t you think it’s pretty funny that the Microsoft giant found you in Duston?” Microsoft said it “cannot comment on ongoing legal matters.” McKenzie decided to create the tool as she struggled with reading as a student due to her dyslexia and her son experienced similar issues. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. “The problem with dyslexia techniques right now is that you take the word they’re struggling with and write it on a separate page. But that doesn’t help someone who’s trying to read a story fluently and enjoy it,” McKenzie said. “It does it there and then on the page, so it’s very fast. The English language is made up of lots of prefixes and suffixes, so it’s very useful to be able to point them out and pick them out very clearly, in a book.” Last year McKenzie won a grant from the Northamptonshire Business and IP Center to help launch the product. The tool is designed to be recycled and 30p from each purchased will go to a separate community interest company helping to increase literacy levels in the UK. “I wanted to try to tackle this problem of reading becoming something that some kids really fear and hate,” McKenzie said. “I hope the product is really successful, but I also really want to tackle what is a really big issue in the UK and potentially other countries.”
