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My understanding was you can use a trademarked name but only if it was in an unrelated category. Clearly no one will confuse a phone running Oreo with a cookie
by X86BSD 9y ago
My understanding was you can use a trademarked name but only if it was in an unrelated category. Clearly no one will confuse a phone running Oreo with a cookie you eat and dip in milk. now if google made a cookie and called it oreo, they would get sued. But IANAL and am probably totally wrong here.
- acdx 9y agoGoogle extremely obviously did not use the name Oreo without asking for permission
- KGIII 9y agoFrom the last time this was asked, they asked permission. With KitKat, they paid - someone linked a citation for it but it's not in my history.
- snorlaxle 9y agoWhat I read at the time is that no money was paid to anyone. Hope you find the linked citation https://techcrunch.com/2013/09/03/google-strikes-bizarre-licensing-deal-with-nestle-to-name-next-android-kit-kat/ https://techcrunch.com/2013/09/03/google-strikes-bizarre-lic...
- KGIII 9y agoI stand corrected. Well, at least I am not seeing their source.
- emmelaich 9y agoIndeed, and the biscuit company may well have paid Google for the advertising.
- sowbug 9y agoYour understanding covers the basic intent of U.S. trademarks, but it got much more complicated with the Federal Trademark Dilution Act of 1995: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Trademark_Dilution_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Trademark_Dilution_Act. Nowadays, impairing a famous trademark's distinctiveness can be an issue, even in the absence of confusion or competition.
- Kiro 9y agohttps://www.android.com/versions/oreo-8-0/ https://www.android.com/versions/oreo-8-0/ See the huge Oreo cookie there? I honestly don't understand why you made this comment.