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First of all nice work! Second there is already a product out there called jaws: http://www.freedomscientific.com/Products/Blindness/JAWS http://www.freedomsci

First of all nice work! Second there is already a product out there called jaws: http://www.freedomscientific.com/Products/Blindness/JAWS http://www.freedomscientific.com/Products/Blindness/JAWS The last time I checked (and my information is very dated, 5+ years) this was a fairly popular piece of software in the blind community. I also do not know the status of trademark around the term. If you were going to change names, its early days for you now would be the good time to do it.

mwcampbell 11y ago
JAWS the screen reader is still quite popular, though an open-source one called NVDA (http://www.nvaccess.org/ http://www.nvaccess.org/) is on the rise. I doubt that FS will come after this project for trademark infringement, since it's not a threat to them, not even in the same field.
- zer00eyz 11y ago
  I agree with you "minimal" risk assessment. However we have all see companies do stupid things. I don't remember off hand if you are REQUIRED to defend a trademark for it to be enforceable.
  - xeromal 11y ago
    You are REQUIRED or you lose it. It is what has caused a lot of lawsuits in the first place.
- tomphoolery 11y ago
  What about JSAWS? :) (pronounced "J-Sauce" in case you were wondering)
ac360 11y ago
Thanks for the heads up! I'm not affiliated with Amazon, nor do I know anyone over there. I'm a freelancer in Oakland, CA., and my goal is merely to offer some open source code to help people take advantage of emerging tech so that they can build ridiculously cheap and scalable web apps.
- daveloyall 11y ago
  Your project is on the front page of HN right now, so you can be forgiven for not reading every comment with a critical eye--you're busy, I'm sure. When you get a chance, think of this post and come back and read it again!
  - abraae 11y ago
    +1 Beautifully stated. JAWS the essential accessibility tool was the first thing I thought of when I saw the title.
jimmcslim 11y ago
Maybe this (great!) project could be renamed to the Javascript Amazon Web Application Stack and abbreviated to JAWAS... I'm sure there will be no trademark problems with that AT ALL!
disordinary 11y ago
You can't put a wordmark on a word like Jaws. These two peices of software are completely different you can't confuse them, they aren't competing, there is no trademark infringement. Its not an issue.
elcct 11y ago
Let's hope blind people will not see a problem with this
- BraveNewCurency 11y ago
  I see what you did there.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
tgig 11y ago
Agree. Beautiful stuff! The second problem with the name JAWS is that it's not very SEO friendly - competing with a lot of stuff. My first reaction was to google for some examples using JAWS, but that pulls up a huge variety of things (including the Freedom Scientific software, which is confusing at first). I give +1 for the JSAWS (j-sauce) acronym.

mwcampbell 11y ago

JAWS the screen reader is still quite popular, though an open-source one called NVDA (http://www.nvaccess.org/ http://www.nvaccess.org/) is on the rise. I doubt that FS will come after this project for trademark infringement, since it's not a threat to them, not even in the same field.

zer00eyz 11y ago
I agree with you "minimal" risk assessment. However we have all see companies do stupid things. I don't remember off hand if you are REQUIRED to defend a trademark for it to be enforceable.
- xeromal 11y ago
  You are REQUIRED or you lose it. It is what has caused a lot of lawsuits in the first place.
tomphoolery 11y ago
What about JSAWS? :) (pronounced "J-Sauce" in case you were wondering)

ac360 11y ago

Thanks for the heads up! I'm not affiliated with Amazon, nor do I know anyone over there. I'm a freelancer in Oakland, CA., and my goal is merely to offer some open source code to help people take advantage of emerging tech so that they can build ridiculously cheap and scalable web apps.

daveloyall 11y ago
Your project is on the front page of HN right now, so you can be forgiven for not reading every comment with a critical eye--you're busy, I'm sure. When you get a chance, think of this post and come back and read it again!
- abraae 11y ago
  +1 Beautifully stated. JAWS the essential accessibility tool was the first thing I thought of when I saw the title.

jimmcslim 11y ago

Maybe this (great!) project could be renamed to the Javascript Amazon Web Application Stack and abbreviated to JAWAS... I'm sure there will be no trademark problems with that AT ALL!

disordinary 11y ago

You can't put a wordmark on a word like Jaws. These two peices of software are completely different you can't confuse them, they aren't competing, there is no trademark infringement. Its not an issue.

elcct 11y ago

Let's hope blind people will not see a problem with this

BraveNewCurency 11y ago
I see what you did there.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

tgig 11y ago

Agree. Beautiful stuff! The second problem with the name JAWS is that it's not very SEO friendly - competing with a lot of stuff. My first reaction was to google for some examples using JAWS, but that pulls up a huge variety of things (including the Freedom Scientific software, which is confusing at first). I give +1 for the JSAWS (j-sauce) acronym.