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> "So imagine our surprise when Amazon launched their service in 2015 based on Elasticsearch and called it Amazon Elasticsearch Service. We consider this to be

by eznzt 6y ago

> "So imagine our surprise when Amazon launched their service in 2015 based on Elasticsearch and called it Amazon Elasticsearch Service. We consider this to be a pretty obvious trademark violation. NOT OK." I don't understand. If I have an ISP and I offer mysql servers, can't I call that offering "Eznzt MySQL Service"?

Macha 6y ago
Given that Elastic are describing that they've tried every option, I including legal ones and Amazon elasticsearch service is still named as such, it would seem it at least isn't as clear cut as elastic believes
- indymike 6y ago
  Or they have not had their day in court. Trademark litigation is usually pretty straightforward.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
marcosdumay 6y ago
Is it exactly MySQL (but hosted by Eznzt) or is it something mostly like MySQL but different?
sithadmin 6y ago
IANAL, but my understanding is that including the software package in the product/service name this would potentially open your company up to a trademark suit, because it potentiates customer confusion regarding the things that Elastic is complaining about w/r/t Amazon's offerings of Elasticsearch. Personally, I find that thinking about this issue seems more intuitive when imagining tangible physical products. Imagine that Amazon decides to enter the Cookies as a Service market, and starts launching service offerings with names like 'Oreos by Amazon'. At a glance, would one not assume that this was some sort of collaborative effort between Nabisco and Amazon? I think the average consumer would. And the same probably applies in a situation involving a software product.
prepend 6y ago
I’m confused too. IANAL but this seems like it’s a clear use of trademark. Amazon sells Hershey bars through its site. I don’t think it needs to get permission to say “here’s the subscribe and save service to buy Hershey bars.” I think the confusion is whether ElasticCo is endorsing or part of the service offering. So it should be clear that the offering isn’t by ElasticCo. Back to the chocolate example, as long as Amazon doesn’t make it seem like Hershey is endorsing their site or offering the product they should be clear. I’ve seen this tucked into the fine print on stuff where it says that just because they are selling Hershey it has nothing to do with Hershey the company. It seems odd that the company wouldn’t want it to be called AWS ElasticSearch as that’s what it is. ElasticSearch software sold as a service by AWS. Calling it something else is more confusing.
- Yeroc 6y ago
  It's a bit more muddled then that since AWS isn't using the true ElasticSearch bits but rather an OpenDistro fork of it that they created themselves. So is it still ElasticSearch? Mostly, but it's not exactly the same thing either. But of course AWS would want to leverage the name recognition of ElasticSearch...
  - Xylakant 6y ago
    Opendistro is not a fork, it’s a collection of plugins that work with the open source elasticsearch distribution, basically it replaces what used to be called x-pack (security etc.)
fipar 6y ago
Last time I checked, no, you couldn't. You could instead call the offering "Eznzt Service for MySQL". A long time ago I had an open source project to manage mysql replication topologies, and I called it mysql-ha. At some point, they reached out to me about the trademark infringement. They were nice about it, I did not get a legal notice or anything, just a contact from a MySQL employee pointing me to their policy (as in my response to your example: I could have called it ha-for-mysql), and requesting that I changed the name to make it compliant. I ended up with a full rename (called it highbase) and they were kind enough to give me a one year free subscription to MySQL Enterprise as a token of appreciation for my change. In way that I think is interesting regarding the AWS and Elastic situation, what MySQL's trademark policy intended was to avoid the situation in which a third party could be confused by a product or project name (mysql-ha in my case) as to believe that MySQL, the company, was behind the offering. So any use of the trademark that made it clear they were not involved (as in the "X for MySQL" vs. "MySQL X") was ok.
fipar 6y ago
I checked again, and the guidelines with Oracle are similar to what they were with MySQL AB: https://www.oracle.com/legal/trademarks.html https://www.oracle.com/legal/trademarks.html Specifically to your example (I think), see "Company, Product or Service Names ", where it states the following: > Do not use Oracle trademarks or potentially confusing variations as all or part of your company, product or service names. If you wish to note the relationship of your products or services to Oracle products or services, please use an appropriate tag line as detailed above. For example, "XYZ for Oracle database" not "OraXYZ or XYZ Oracle"

by eznzt 6y ago

Macha 6y ago

Given that Elastic are describing that they've tried every option, I including legal ones and Amazon elasticsearch service is still named as such, it would seem it at least isn't as clear cut as elastic believes

indymike 6y ago
Or they have not had their day in court. Trademark litigation is usually pretty straightforward.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

marcosdumay 6y ago

Is it exactly MySQL (but hosted by Eznzt) or is it something mostly like MySQL but different?

sithadmin 6y ago

IANAL, but my understanding is that including the software package in the product/service name this would potentially open your company up to a trademark suit, because it potentiates customer confusion regarding the things that Elastic is complaining about w/r/t Amazon's offerings of Elasticsearch. Personally, I find that thinking about this issue seems more intuitive when imagining tangible physical products. Imagine that Amazon decides to enter the Cookies as a Service market, and starts launching service offerings with names like 'Oreos by Amazon'. At a glance, would one not assume that this was some sort of collaborative effort between Nabisco and Amazon? I think the average consumer would. And the same probably applies in a situation involving a software product.

prepend 6y ago

I’m confused too. IANAL but this seems like it’s a clear use of trademark. Amazon sells Hershey bars through its site. I don’t think it needs to get permission to say “here’s the subscribe and save service to buy Hershey bars.” I think the confusion is whether ElasticCo is endorsing or part of the service offering. So it should be clear that the offering isn’t by ElasticCo. Back to the chocolate example, as long as Amazon doesn’t make it seem like Hershey is endorsing their site or offering the product they should be clear. I’ve seen this tucked into the fine print on stuff where it says that just because they are selling Hershey it has nothing to do with Hershey the company. It seems odd that the company wouldn’t want it to be called AWS ElasticSearch as that’s what it is. ElasticSearch software sold as a service by AWS. Calling it something else is more confusing.

Yeroc 6y ago
It's a bit more muddled then that since AWS isn't using the true ElasticSearch bits but rather an OpenDistro fork of it that they created themselves. So is it still ElasticSearch? Mostly, but it's not exactly the same thing either. But of course AWS would want to leverage the name recognition of ElasticSearch...
- Xylakant 6y ago
  Opendistro is not a fork, it’s a collection of plugins that work with the open source elasticsearch distribution, basically it replaces what used to be called x-pack (security etc.)

fipar 6y ago

Last time I checked, no, you couldn't. You could instead call the offering "Eznzt Service for MySQL". A long time ago I had an open source project to manage mysql replication topologies, and I called it mysql-ha. At some point, they reached out to me about the trademark infringement. They were nice about it, I did not get a legal notice or anything, just a contact from a MySQL employee pointing me to their policy (as in my response to your example: I could have called it ha-for-mysql), and requesting that I changed the name to make it compliant. I ended up with a full rename (called it highbase) and they were kind enough to give me a one year free subscription to MySQL Enterprise as a token of appreciation for my change. In way that I think is interesting regarding the AWS and Elastic situation, what MySQL's trademark policy intended was to avoid the situation in which a third party could be confused by a product or project name (mysql-ha in my case) as to believe that MySQL, the company, was behind the offering. So any use of the trademark that made it clear they were not involved (as in the "X for MySQL" vs. "MySQL X") was ok.

fipar 6y ago

I checked again, and the guidelines with Oracle are similar to what they were with MySQL AB: https://www.oracle.com/legal/trademarks.html https://www.oracle.com/legal/trademarks.html Specifically to your example (I think), see "Company, Product or Service Names ", where it states the following: > Do not use Oracle trademarks or potentially confusing variations as all or part of your company, product or service names. If you wish to note the relationship of your products or services to Oracle products or services, please use an appropriate tag line as detailed above. For example, "XYZ for Oracle database" not "OraXYZ or XYZ Oracle"