2 ms·
No, but there was - it's since been taken down[0]. To me, the wording and lack of detail in original post, the apparent lack of understanding of clauses agreed
by jimsmart 6y ago
No, but there was - it's since been taken down[0].
To me, the wording and lack of detail in original post, the apparent lack of understanding of clauses agreed upon in the Ts&Cs, the admission to using the keyword 'monkey' for one's app, when this is a known (admittedly: lesser so in many circles) product, along with the implied no-wrong doing with comparisons to how allegedly other brands do not mind similar, makes me think this could likely be someone learning the hard way why keyword stuffing isn't a thing. But I might be wrong, I often am.
But something certainly smells a little bit fishy to me, in all honesty.
It's a bit like: "Can I really not use the brand name of a competitor's app in my App Store keywords? Really? Even though it is plainly stated in the agreed upon terms and conditions, what, really?". I don't really get it. It seems rather naive to me. But hey, I'm getting old. (Hey kids: gerroff my lawn already!)
Called out, multiple times apparently, for keyword stuffing using competitors terms, when that plainly isn't allowed in the agreement - not a winning strategy. Would be somewhat high-risk if a business were to be relying on that, no?
https://www.distractify.com/p/what-happened-to-the-monkey-app https://www.distractify.com/p/what-happened-to-the-monkey-ap...
- jimsmart 6y agoFurther on Monkey - founded by Ben Pasternak, "Monkey was acquired by Chinese social media company Holla for an undisclosed sum in December 2017" [0] Re my previous point: That's one of the things with trademark law: once granted a mark, one is in fact legally obliged to defend that mark, and any unauthorised use(s) of said mark, otherwise one loses the granted trademark status. That's how it works. (Not that I can be sure this is to do with trademark law, but it has been mentioned already, and it could very well be.) So I strongly suspect the OP has in fact no legal recourse here whatsoever (but I'd strongly advise seeking advice from someone qualified in the matter). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Pasternak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Pasternak
- zepto 6y agoThanks - good clarification. Makes a lot of sense.
- jimsmart 6y agoSearching for "Beijing Lakesha Network Technology" (with quotes) only seems to bring up a couple of pages of results, most of which are trademark registrations (including the US trademark registration for Monkey[0] — the info Apple allegedly refused to supply when requested. I mean: it is publicly available already, I guess their administrative obligation ends with providing the company name and the offending mark in the App Store rejection notification?). To me, that doesn't seem like they are 'farming' trademarks or patents (not that anyone claimed they were - I'm just looking for anything that smells fishy, and to me: this is not) — that is to say: just a couple of pages of trademarks seems reasonable to me, and just seems like a fairly small(ish) handful of protected IP that one could infringe upon — it doesn't strike me that their business model is trademarking lots of generic words. It's certainly a lot less trademark filings than the likes of Facebook and such. [0] https://trademarks.justia.com/880/97/monkey-88097148.html https://trademarks.justia.com/880/97/monkey-88097148.html