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I'll take a crack.[1] … a trademark is a distinctive sign or indicator used … to identify that the products … with which the trademark appears originate from a

by jws 17y ago

I'll take a crack.[1] … a trademark is a distinctive sign or indicator used … to identify that the products … with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source…[wikipedia:trademark] The developer clearly chose their name to associate their product with the source of the iPad and bask in that trademark owner's glow. The angry mob here is vomiting "*pad" strawmen, but "ContactPad" is not a generic word. Notice the capital 'P', notice the absence in any dictionary. Now google "apple trademark pod" and tell me the developer shouldn't have seen this coming a mile away. [1] I have great sympathy for anyone that has to name a product. In the past I've had to resort to a wordlike sequence of 5 letters for a major product because the lawyers kept waving us off of (and billing us for) anything we could think of that was the slightest bit descriptive. We even got waved off of a particular kind of quark because there was a software firm half a world away using it in their name.

jrockway 17y ago
So is the default editor on Windows violating a trademark?
- jws 17y ago
  No. That isn't how trademarks work. Your trademark protects you inside a specific field of endeavor where a consumer might be confused about the source of a product. If you use a word in good faith for its primary meaning and no consumer confusion is likely to result then you are fine. On the other hand, if you wrap yourself up to look like you are associated with something you know your customer has already purchased and likes, then you will have a problem. In between lie lawyers.
confuzatron 17y ago
"ContactPad" is not a generic word. But is it an Apple trademark? You are right in one way - developers should know by now that if they venture into the AppStore, they can expect Apple to destroy their business without hesitation, whenever they feel like it.
- jws 17y ago
  A infringes B and C owns A implies C owns B? That would be novel doctrine. I wonder, does Apple have app renaming support? When the user updates, does it pull the newly named app or does the app just die and the user have to find the new one? If the app updates, the name changes a little and the icon stays the same then it isn't too bad. If the app goes away that is devastating.
gjm11 17y ago
> strawmen Speaking of strawmen: I don't see anyone claiming that "ContactPad" is a generic word. What I see is the claim that it's a non-generic name made from generic elements none of which is owned by Apple, containing no bits that are owned by Apple. (That doesn't mean Apple aren't in the right here. I don't know whether they are. You can certainly infringe on a trademark without using the exact mark, and if someone brought out a tablet computer called the EyePad then the absence of the "i" would be no defence. But "ContactPad"? "JournalPad"? Not being a lawyer, I have no more than a guess. But my guess is that Apple's trademark on "iPad" is not in fact enough to make it illegal for someone else to sell a program that runs on an iPad and has "pad" in its name.) > tell me the developer shouldn't have seen this coming a mile away. Now, that I can certainly agree with. (And, also, of course it doesn't matter whether Apple have any sort of credible trademark claim; they can control what gets sold on the App Store without one.) > a particular kind of quark The quarks are: up, down, top, bottom, charmed, strange. (For a while T,B were called truth and beauty). Those are all common English words. Why would the fact that they're also names of quarks stop your lawyers worrying about them? -- Or do you mean that your product was called something like BottomQuark? You do realise that there's a really quite big software company whose name is Quark, right? Or were you talking about soft cheese?
- jws 17y ago
  My physics eluded me. It was actually a pair of quarks.
brg 17y ago
Could the basic Windows utility "Notepad" be ported to the "IPad" due to naming conventions?

by jws 17y ago

jrockway 17y ago

So is the default editor on Windows violating a trademark?

jws 17y ago
No. That isn't how trademarks work. Your trademark protects you inside a specific field of endeavor where a consumer might be confused about the source of a product. If you use a word in good faith for its primary meaning and no consumer confusion is likely to result then you are fine. On the other hand, if you wrap yourself up to look like you are associated with something you know your customer has already purchased and likes, then you will have a problem. In between lie lawyers.

confuzatron 17y ago

"ContactPad" is not a generic word. But is it an Apple trademark? You are right in one way - developers should know by now that if they venture into the AppStore, they can expect Apple to destroy their business without hesitation, whenever they feel like it.

jws 17y ago
A infringes B and C owns A implies C owns B? That would be novel doctrine. I wonder, does Apple have app renaming support? When the user updates, does it pull the newly named app or does the app just die and the user have to find the new one? If the app updates, the name changes a little and the icon stays the same then it isn't too bad. If the app goes away that is devastating.

gjm11 17y ago

> strawmen Speaking of strawmen: I don't see anyone claiming that "ContactPad" is a generic word. What I see is the claim that it's a non-generic name made from generic elements none of which is owned by Apple, containing no bits that are owned by Apple. (That doesn't mean Apple aren't in the right here. I don't know whether they are. You can certainly infringe on a trademark without using the exact mark, and if someone brought out a tablet computer called the EyePad then the absence of the "i" would be no defence. But "ContactPad"? "JournalPad"? Not being a lawyer, I have no more than a guess. But my guess is that Apple's trademark on "iPad" is not in fact enough to make it illegal for someone else to sell a program that runs on an iPad and has "pad" in its name.) > tell me the developer shouldn't have seen this coming a mile away. Now, that I can certainly agree with. (And, also, of course it doesn't matter whether Apple have any sort of credible trademark claim; they can control what gets sold on the App Store without one.) > a particular kind of quark The quarks are: up, down, top, bottom, charmed, strange. (For a while T,B were called truth and beauty). Those are all common English words. Why would the fact that they're also names of quarks stop your lawyers worrying about them? -- Or do you mean that your product was called something like BottomQuark? You do realise that there's a really quite big software company whose name is Quark, right? Or were you talking about soft cheese?

jws 17y ago
My physics eluded me. It was actually a pair of quarks.

brg 17y ago

Could the basic Windows utility "Notepad" be ported to the "IPad" due to naming conventions?