16 ms·

I probably don't know what I'm talking about, but it seems to me that many companies pursue legal action that is against their own interest. Surely, Humvees in

by smabie 7y ago

I probably don't know what I'm talking about, but it seems to me that many companies pursue legal action that is against their own interest. Surely, Humvees in CoD could only help the brand, no? Moreover, the fact that they don't even sell any consumer products in the first place makes the entire suit even more dubious. The use of Humvees in CoD is going to sow confusion among the military purchasing officers and they're no longer going to buy them? It just doesn't make any sense. I'm beginning to think that a lot of these types of lawsuits stems from the lawyers themselves recommending them and somehow convincing the management to go along with it. After all, they're really the only party that wins regardless of the outcome of the case.

Smoosh 7y ago
I suspect there's also an aspect of thinking by the company's management that control equals power and leads to profit. Clearly not fully thought through though.
- anticensor 7y ago
  Control over non-members is an implicit goal common to all kinds of organisations, even in ones that are primarily instituted to control its members.
tinkertamper 7y ago
I also don't know what I'm talking about, but I think one of the core responsibilities of a trademark owner is that you establish a history of defending it. I heard once that if you don't do that you risk losing control of your rights to that property. Any smarty pants on here able to confirm/set me straight?
- jussij 7y ago
  From the page: As for proximity of the products, while AM General may license out the rights to depict Humvees in games and toys, the judge isn't impressed because that's not its central purpose as a business. I also may not know what I'm talking about, but that statement by the judge suggests that in this case, AM General was not so much interested in protecting it's trademark, but rather more interested in enforce some sort of licensing payment.
- crooked-v 7y ago
  This is called trademark erosion. An example of this historically would be aspirin, which was originally a trademarked brand name of Bayer but was legally ruled in 1918 and 1921 to have become genericized, because the company took no actions to prevent others from using the name. This generally only applies when non-holders use the trademark to market in the same field as the original business, though: not "we went to McDonald's", but rather "welcome to McDonald's (no relation to the corporate giant), would you like fries with that?". It doesn't apply in this case because the Call of Duty series has nothing to do with selling vehicles.
  - solinent 7y ago
    The standard example I've heard is for Trampoline. No one calls them rebound tumblers anymore. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trampoline#First_modern_trampolines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trampoline#First_modern_trampo... I think this is really just a case of lawyers being super-protective. It also pays well, I'm sure. I think a words like Humvee or even Google have coloquially already lost their meaning--their meaning is polymorphic, it's only a matter of time (100 years is a matter of time) before a better Humvee or Google not released by the original product designer comes along that people will call Humvee or Google anyways.
    - Swizec 7y ago
      Trader Joe’s makes the best kleenex. And my iPhone captures the best kodak moments. I also enjoy facetiming via Slack. And of course googling for music is best done on Spotify.
      - oliveshell 7y ago
        Haha, yep. Personally, my friends and I have been skype-ing through Discord a lot recently.
      - mnemonicsloth 7y ago
        Hardly anybody remembers nowadays but Elevators and Fridges used to be brand names (of the Otis Elevator company and Frigidaire, respectively). So the endpoint of nobody remembering that your IP is IP has been reached in practice. And more recently there's the PC, which became detached from IBM in record time.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- djsumdog 7y ago
  Yep, so this serve the companies interest because they're trying to defend their trademark; even if they failed. I doubt Humvee is in danger of becoming a generic term (Jeep is more likely; I cannot tell you much my it annoyed me my ex called her Suzuki 4x4 a "Jeep" .. it's not a Jeep! It's a 4x4 or off-roader.." but if they enter into other trademark battles, the opposing council can't say "Well they haven't tried to defend their trademark before now..."
  - filoleg 7y ago
    Interesting you bring up a point about Jeep. Never once in the US I've heard of a non-Jeep-made SUV referred to as a "Jeep". But back when I lived in Russia, every single SUV was referred to as a "Jeep". I don't even know of another word for SUV in Russian. Not trying to argue against you btw, I just personally find stuff like this interesting. EDIT: just checked the wikipedia page for SUV in russian, and yep, in the second paragraph it says that SUVs are usually referred to as "Jeeps" in post-Soviet countries.
    - DenisM 7y ago
      Another word is внедорожник, or off-roader: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B6%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%BE... The legend has it that when economic restrictions were relaxed towards the end of the SU someone bartered a huge quantity of a natural resource (coal?) for a huge number Jeep Grand Cherokee vehicles. So around that time they were only types of cars in SU - subpar Soviet cars and fancy American Jeeps.
      - filoleg 7y ago
        Oh yeah, thanks for bringing it up, totally forgot about this one. Ironically, I've only heard of it being used when it comes to the actual Jeep-made vehicles and stuff like Rav4/Land Cruiser, so it seems to be used pretty accurately.
      - boring_twenties 7y ago
        No idea if it's at all common, but my favorite that I've heard is вездеход.
- AdrianB1 7y ago
  If not making a fool of themselves in the process, yes. Common sense is much needed in such situations, I would say.
  - kube-system 7y ago
    What's the cost-benefit analysis between choosing to do so, or not? I'd guess that the cost of making a fool of one's self for trademark enforcement is usually pretty low... especially if your target customer doesn't make purchasing decisions based on it.
    - AdrianB1 7y ago
      The cost for the lawyers? Not cheap at all.
      - kube-system 7y ago
        If you're a small business, it's expensive. If you have some on staff, it might not be.
- KingFelix 7y ago
  I too don't know what I am talking about, but I think I prefer Halo of Call of Duty. Console LAN parties, the good old days. I agree with Smabie though, I think it would bring more to the brand. Also tinkertamper your thoughts appear pretty sound too. Carry on
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- bootlooped 7y ago
  I have read an alternate strategy here is to license the use of the name for free. Them accepting the license implies that you have the legal rights to it, and licensed uses cannot be used as evidence for trademark erosion. I'm not a lawyer, but it sounds believable.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
save_ferris 7y ago
Ehh, I think Humvee saw a company making a truckload of money and felt they had a right to some of it given that they own a major vehicle that's used in the game. I could easily see an ego-maniacal CEO or founder getting pissed that he's not getting paid for something he feels entitled to. Maybe they're seeing how pro athletes are licensing their likeness to games and thought they could make a compelling argument for why they should too. Whatever the reason, I also agree with outcome of the suit.
- duskwuff 7y ago
  The flow is typically in the other direction, though -- companies pay for placement of their products in media, like movies and video games, as it's seen as a form of advertising.
  - filoleg 7y ago
    That's what I thought too, but then your comment got me thinking deeper. What you said definitely seems to be the case for general media, but what about something that relies almost entirely on the realistic products to be compelling? The specific example I was thinking of was racing games that use real cars (Forza, Gran Turismo, etc.). Do those companies get paid to feature real cars or do they have to pay to use them?
    - detaro 7y ago
      The game makers pay for racing games, or at least work out deals regarding marketing etc. I've read that car companies also care a lot about the presentation in-game, so e.g. games with real cars can't have extreme damage models because many companies don't want horribly wrecked versions of their cars to be shown.
    - duskwuff 7y ago
      > The specific example I was thinking of was racing games that use real cars (Forza, Gran Turismo, etc.). Do those companies get paid to feature real cars or do they have to pay to use them? I'm not sure, but I imagine so. What gets complicated is how the cars are depicted in the games. I've heard stories of racing simulators which couldn't use realistic damage models because the licensors for their cars wouldn't approve of having their cars depicted in a damaged state. I can imagine there might be issues with having some models of cars modelled as having worse performance than their competitors (slower, worse handling, etc) as well. It's not as though this is unique to video games, though. A company that's paying to have their car appear in a movie might stipulate that it not appear in situations involving it breaking down or crashing, for instance.
wbobeirne 7y ago
The most common explanation I see for this kind of behavior is that companies have to show that they actively defend their trademarks, which means being indiscriminate against trademark violations.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
wmf 7y ago
Video games were paying licensing fees to arms makers for a while so they just wanted in on that.
- LatteLazy 7y ago
  Really? Who has done that? Edit, Google says some people did it till 2013...
skocznymroczny 7y ago
What if Humvees become the worst vehicles in the game because of balancing reasons? If I were the owner of the brand I'd be pissed. Even worse in case of other vehicles like racing cars. Imagine a racing game in which Porsche cars are slowest and break more often than other cars. You wouldn't want your brand to be associated with that, even if it's a videogame. Or imagine a completely broken game with popular car. Big Rigs level kind of broken. You wouldn't want your luxury car brand associated with broken school project level of games.
- Alupis 7y ago
  > What if Humvees become the worst vehicles in the game because of balancing reasons? If I were the owner of the brand I'd be pissed. Pretty much exactly what happened with the Glock in the Counter Strike PC game.
  - babypuncher 7y ago
    And yet nobody bases their decision whether or not to buy a Glock based on its performance in Counter-Strike. It's a non-issue.
    - WaxProlix 7y ago
      I grew up playing Counter-Strike and have in the past few years bought a few guns; despite their solid reputation and the fact that they do what I want, I never even considered a Glock. Was this causal? Who knows, but I wouldn't rule it out.
      - macintux 7y ago
        Given how effective advertising is, I think it's safer to assume that such a relationship does exist for some. We're all subject to a wide variety of unconscious biases.
      - projektfu 7y ago
        I assume that a gamer would want a Heckler & Koch VP9 just for the appearance.
wmil 7y ago
A while back (90s?) defence involved corporations adopted a "maximum ip" strategy. So they demand license fees for things like scale model F-15 kits. They want to keep that revenue and expand it, so they try to make video game companies get licenses. To expand revenue and defend trademarks.
LatteLazy 7y ago
In the US you generally have to pay your own fees, even if you successfully defend a suit. So I guess it makes sense for Humvee: they need a legal department for when there are real lawsuits. They have to pay them all the time, as they don't know when a real suit will hit them. So in the mean time, why not file frivolous bs like this? The margin cost is zero. If a real suit comes in, you just drop the bs one. And you might get an insane judge and actually win! And if you don't, at least it kept everyone busy for a year.
- refurb 7y ago
  The margin cost is zero Corporate legal departments (at least the big companies) hire out trial work typically and at a very high hourly price.
  - Sebguer 7y ago
    Also the idea that corporate legal departments are just doing nothing all the time unless they're suing people is the tech equivalent of only caring about IT when something's broken.
Supermancho 7y ago
> the fact that they don't even sell any consumer products in the first place makes the entire suit even more dubious. The CoD brand makes enough money to blink at. I'm 100% sure that one strategy was to win the suit and demand license fees for use of the name.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  The name HMMWV is public domain.
legulere 7y ago
It’s not the company that makes the decision to sue, but the legal department. For the legal department any legal action is good, because it increases their importance and size in the company.
- BiteCode_dev 7y ago
  Somebody is above the legal department. That person doesn't care that the department is important or not, only that it's useful. So how does that happen ?
m463 7y ago
I remember playing a racing game years ago (Gran Turismo maybe?) where the cars weren't allowed to have realistic crash damage because of agreements with the car manufacturers. Meanwhile GTA would let you drive a car until it fell apart. And simpson's hit and run :)
2OEH8eoCRo0 7y ago
Does the game accurately depict them not starting or having a multitude of problems?

by smabie 7y ago

Smoosh 7y ago

I suspect there's also an aspect of thinking by the company's management that control equals power and leads to profit. Clearly not fully thought through though.

anticensor 7y ago
Control over non-members is an implicit goal common to all kinds of organisations, even in ones that are primarily instituted to control its members.

tinkertamper 7y ago

I also don't know what I'm talking about, but I think one of the core responsibilities of a trademark owner is that you establish a history of defending it. I heard once that if you don't do that you risk losing control of your rights to that property. Any smarty pants on here able to confirm/set me straight?

jussij 7y ago
From the page: As for proximity of the products, while AM General may license out the rights to depict Humvees in games and toys, the judge isn't impressed because that's not its central purpose as a business. I also may not know what I'm talking about, but that statement by the judge suggests that in this case, AM General was not so much interested in protecting it's trademark, but rather more interested in enforce some sort of licensing payment.
crooked-v 7y ago
This is called trademark erosion. An example of this historically would be aspirin, which was originally a trademarked brand name of Bayer but was legally ruled in 1918 and 1921 to have become genericized, because the company took no actions to prevent others from using the name. This generally only applies when non-holders use the trademark to market in the same field as the original business, though: not "we went to McDonald's", but rather "welcome to McDonald's (no relation to the corporate giant), would you like fries with that?". It doesn't apply in this case because the Call of Duty series has nothing to do with selling vehicles.
- solinent 7y ago
  The standard example I've heard is for Trampoline. No one calls them rebound tumblers anymore. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trampoline#First_modern_trampolines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trampoline#First_modern_trampo... I think this is really just a case of lawyers being super-protective. It also pays well, I'm sure. I think a words like Humvee or even Google have coloquially already lost their meaning--their meaning is polymorphic, it's only a matter of time (100 years is a matter of time) before a better Humvee or Google not released by the original product designer comes along that people will call Humvee or Google anyways.
  - Swizec 7y ago
    Trader Joe’s makes the best kleenex. And my iPhone captures the best kodak moments. I also enjoy facetiming via Slack. And of course googling for music is best done on Spotify.
    - oliveshell 7y ago
      Haha, yep. Personally, my friends and I have been skype-ing through Discord a lot recently.
    - mnemonicsloth 7y ago
      Hardly anybody remembers nowadays but Elevators and Fridges used to be brand names (of the Otis Elevator company and Frigidaire, respectively). So the endpoint of nobody remembering that your IP is IP has been reached in practice. And more recently there's the PC, which became detached from IBM in record time.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
djsumdog 7y ago
Yep, so this serve the companies interest because they're trying to defend their trademark; even if they failed. I doubt Humvee is in danger of becoming a generic term (Jeep is more likely; I cannot tell you much my it annoyed me my ex called her Suzuki 4x4 a "Jeep" .. it's not a Jeep! It's a 4x4 or off-roader.." but if they enter into other trademark battles, the opposing council can't say "Well they haven't tried to defend their trademark before now..."
- filoleg 7y ago
  Interesting you bring up a point about Jeep. Never once in the US I've heard of a non-Jeep-made SUV referred to as a "Jeep". But back when I lived in Russia, every single SUV was referred to as a "Jeep". I don't even know of another word for SUV in Russian. Not trying to argue against you btw, I just personally find stuff like this interesting. EDIT: just checked the wikipedia page for SUV in russian, and yep, in the second paragraph it says that SUVs are usually referred to as "Jeeps" in post-Soviet countries.
  - DenisM 7y ago
    Another word is внедорожник, or off-roader: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B6%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%BE... The legend has it that when economic restrictions were relaxed towards the end of the SU someone bartered a huge quantity of a natural resource (coal?) for a huge number Jeep Grand Cherokee vehicles. So around that time they were only types of cars in SU - subpar Soviet cars and fancy American Jeeps.
    - filoleg 7y ago
      Oh yeah, thanks for bringing it up, totally forgot about this one. Ironically, I've only heard of it being used when it comes to the actual Jeep-made vehicles and stuff like Rav4/Land Cruiser, so it seems to be used pretty accurately.
    - boring_twenties 7y ago
      No idea if it's at all common, but my favorite that I've heard is вездеход.
AdrianB1 7y ago
If not making a fool of themselves in the process, yes. Common sense is much needed in such situations, I would say.
- kube-system 7y ago
  What's the cost-benefit analysis between choosing to do so, or not? I'd guess that the cost of making a fool of one's self for trademark enforcement is usually pretty low... especially if your target customer doesn't make purchasing decisions based on it.
  - AdrianB1 7y ago
    The cost for the lawyers? Not cheap at all.
    - kube-system 7y ago
      If you're a small business, it's expensive. If you have some on staff, it might not be.
KingFelix 7y ago
I too don't know what I am talking about, but I think I prefer Halo of Call of Duty. Console LAN parties, the good old days. I agree with Smabie though, I think it would bring more to the brand. Also tinkertamper your thoughts appear pretty sound too. Carry on
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
bootlooped 7y ago
I have read an alternate strategy here is to license the use of the name for free. Them accepting the license implies that you have the legal rights to it, and licensed uses cannot be used as evidence for trademark erosion. I'm not a lawyer, but it sounds believable.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

save_ferris 7y ago

Ehh, I think Humvee saw a company making a truckload of money and felt they had a right to some of it given that they own a major vehicle that's used in the game. I could easily see an ego-maniacal CEO or founder getting pissed that he's not getting paid for something he feels entitled to. Maybe they're seeing how pro athletes are licensing their likeness to games and thought they could make a compelling argument for why they should too. Whatever the reason, I also agree with outcome of the suit.

duskwuff 7y ago
The flow is typically in the other direction, though -- companies pay for placement of their products in media, like movies and video games, as it's seen as a form of advertising.
- filoleg 7y ago
  That's what I thought too, but then your comment got me thinking deeper. What you said definitely seems to be the case for general media, but what about something that relies almost entirely on the realistic products to be compelling? The specific example I was thinking of was racing games that use real cars (Forza, Gran Turismo, etc.). Do those companies get paid to feature real cars or do they have to pay to use them?
  - detaro 7y ago
    The game makers pay for racing games, or at least work out deals regarding marketing etc. I've read that car companies also care a lot about the presentation in-game, so e.g. games with real cars can't have extreme damage models because many companies don't want horribly wrecked versions of their cars to be shown.
  - duskwuff 7y ago
    > The specific example I was thinking of was racing games that use real cars (Forza, Gran Turismo, etc.). Do those companies get paid to feature real cars or do they have to pay to use them? I'm not sure, but I imagine so. What gets complicated is how the cars are depicted in the games. I've heard stories of racing simulators which couldn't use realistic damage models because the licensors for their cars wouldn't approve of having their cars depicted in a damaged state. I can imagine there might be issues with having some models of cars modelled as having worse performance than their competitors (slower, worse handling, etc) as well. It's not as though this is unique to video games, though. A company that's paying to have their car appear in a movie might stipulate that it not appear in situations involving it breaking down or crashing, for instance.

wbobeirne 7y ago

The most common explanation I see for this kind of behavior is that companies have to show that they actively defend their trademarks, which means being indiscriminate against trademark violations.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

wmf 7y ago

Video games were paying licensing fees to arms makers for a while so they just wanted in on that.

LatteLazy 7y ago
Really? Who has done that? Edit, Google says some people did it till 2013...

skocznymroczny 7y ago

What if Humvees become the worst vehicles in the game because of balancing reasons? If I were the owner of the brand I'd be pissed. Even worse in case of other vehicles like racing cars. Imagine a racing game in which Porsche cars are slowest and break more often than other cars. You wouldn't want your brand to be associated with that, even if it's a videogame. Or imagine a completely broken game with popular car. Big Rigs level kind of broken. You wouldn't want your luxury car brand associated with broken school project level of games.

Alupis 7y ago
> What if Humvees become the worst vehicles in the game because of balancing reasons? If I were the owner of the brand I'd be pissed. Pretty much exactly what happened with the Glock in the Counter Strike PC game.
- babypuncher 7y ago
  And yet nobody bases their decision whether or not to buy a Glock based on its performance in Counter-Strike. It's a non-issue.
  - WaxProlix 7y ago
    I grew up playing Counter-Strike and have in the past few years bought a few guns; despite their solid reputation and the fact that they do what I want, I never even considered a Glock. Was this causal? Who knows, but I wouldn't rule it out.
    - macintux 7y ago
      Given how effective advertising is, I think it's safer to assume that such a relationship does exist for some. We're all subject to a wide variety of unconscious biases.
    - projektfu 7y ago
      I assume that a gamer would want a Heckler & Koch VP9 just for the appearance.

wmil 7y ago

A while back (90s?) defence involved corporations adopted a "maximum ip" strategy. So they demand license fees for things like scale model F-15 kits. They want to keep that revenue and expand it, so they try to make video game companies get licenses. To expand revenue and defend trademarks.

LatteLazy 7y ago

In the US you generally have to pay your own fees, even if you successfully defend a suit. So I guess it makes sense for Humvee: they need a legal department for when there are real lawsuits. They have to pay them all the time, as they don't know when a real suit will hit them. So in the mean time, why not file frivolous bs like this? The margin cost is zero. If a real suit comes in, you just drop the bs one. And you might get an insane judge and actually win! And if you don't, at least it kept everyone busy for a year.

refurb 7y ago
The margin cost is zero Corporate legal departments (at least the big companies) hire out trial work typically and at a very high hourly price.
- Sebguer 7y ago
  Also the idea that corporate legal departments are just doing nothing all the time unless they're suing people is the tech equivalent of only caring about IT when something's broken.

Supermancho 7y ago

> the fact that they don't even sell any consumer products in the first place makes the entire suit even more dubious. The CoD brand makes enough money to blink at. I'm 100% sure that one strategy was to win the suit and demand license fees for use of the name.

kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
The name HMMWV is public domain.

legulere 7y ago

It’s not the company that makes the decision to sue, but the legal department. For the legal department any legal action is good, because it increases their importance and size in the company.

BiteCode_dev 7y ago
Somebody is above the legal department. That person doesn't care that the department is important or not, only that it's useful. So how does that happen ?

m463 7y ago

I remember playing a racing game years ago (Gran Turismo maybe?) where the cars weren't allowed to have realistic crash damage because of agreements with the car manufacturers. Meanwhile GTA would let you drive a car until it fell apart. And simpson's hit and run :)

2OEH8eoCRo0 7y ago

Does the game accurately depict them not starting or having a multitude of problems?