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Copyright infringement aside, naming the project "WhatFreeWords" seems to teeter very close to trademark infringement. The legal term if I recall is "deceptivel

Copyright infringement aside, naming the project "WhatFreeWords" seems to teeter very close to trademark infringement. The legal term if I recall is "deceptively similar" which the OSS project arguably is.

riffic 5y ago
likelihood of confusion
gmiller123456 5y ago
The term in "confusingly similar" https://www.bitlaw.com/guidance/trademark/dealing-with-a-confusingly-similar-rejection.html https://www.bitlaw.com/guidance/trademark/dealing-with-a-con...
practicalpants 5y ago
The name is a clear satire/parody, they would be fine at least under US law.
- dehrmann 5y ago
  If you only used profanity, celebrity names, only had locations in North Korea, or something absurd, I'd agree. If you're marketing an equivalent product, nope.
- cdash 5y ago
  I am not sure that is the case. You definitely have an argument if this was only done in satire but when you are also truly offering a competing product while using a similar name it is hard to argue that it is just parody.
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    There was a comedian who successfully opened a coffee shop in the US named "Dumb Starbucks", logo and all. Every menu item was copied verbatim from the actual Starbucks menu but with the word "Dumb" added as a prefix. Despite a massive social media campaign that would have certainly caught the eye of Starbucks, they received no legal threats. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo_deCOd1HU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo_deCOd1HU
    - strken 5y ago
      This was done by an established comedian, made no profit, and immediately closed.
- gnicholas 5y ago
  Parody is a defense you can raise, but it's tricky to win. [1] And even if you do win, you've got to pay your lawyers who made the arguments for you. If I were arguing for W3W, I would point out that in some dialects of British English (where W3W is based), "what three words" and "what free words" would be pronounced identically. This means that in verbal communication, it would be very difficult to tell the two apart. That would make it harder to win a parody case, since in spoken language people wouldn't even be able to tell that you were saying something different. 1: https://www.lottfischer.com/blog/trademark-parody/ https://www.lottfischer.com/blog/trademark-parody/
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  Neither satire nor parody are fully immunized under US trademark law, and it doesn’t seem obviously outside the scope of what could be problematic from either an infringement or dilution liability standpoint notwithstanding parody. https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/trademark-parody-and-freedom-of-speech-70581/ https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/trademark-parody-and-freed...
arthurfm 5y ago
Using 'Free' could also be a nod to the fact that there are a lot of very similar sounding words in the What3Words system [1]. The What3Words word list is 40,000 words long. It is important that words in this list cannot be confused, otherwise they may be communicated incorrectly. For example band/banned, bare/bear, beat/beet are easily confused. A quick inspection of their word list finds the following words that sound very, very similar to one another: equivalence equivalents incidence incidents incite insight incompetence incompetents independence independents innocence innocents instance instants intense intents lightening lightning ordinance ordnance [1] https://cybergibbons.com/security-2/why-what3words-is-not-suitable-for-safety-critical-applications/ https://cybergibbons.com/security-2/why-what3words-is-not-su...
- mbirth 5y ago
  IIRC it’s designed so that similar sounding words are so far apart from each other that it’s clear that you’ve got something wrong. Meaning the w3w addresses are meant to be used with a vague idea of where you want to go.
  - eddyg 5y ago
    There are far too many word “collisions” that result in nearby (but not close enough to find someone) locations. e.g.: https://twitter.com/matthewwilkes/status/1388772924627333121 https://twitter.com/matthewwilkes/status/1388772924627333121 https://twitter.com/cybergibbons/status/1387911525873197057 https://twitter.com/cybergibbons/status/1387911525873197057
  - cybergibbons 5y ago
    Yeah, that's not true. https://cybergibbons.com/security-2/why-what3words-is-not-suitable-for-safety-critical-applications/ https://cybergibbons.com/security-2/why-what3words-is-not-su...
    - mbirth 5y ago
      From their FAQs[1]: > The overwhelming proportion of similar-sounding 3 word combinations will be so far apart that an error is obvious, However, it continues like this: > but there will still be cases where potentially confusable word combinations are nearby. Our Autosuggest feature actively intercepts possible errors or confusions and highlights other possibilities to the user, helping to identify what might need to be checked. So they rely on auto-suggest and people trying all suggested alternatives. [1] https://support.what3words.com/en/articles/3577589-how-are-the-words-assigned https://support.what3words.com/en/articles/3577589-how-are-t...

riffic 5y ago

likelihood of confusion

gmiller123456 5y ago

The term in "confusingly similar" https://www.bitlaw.com/guidance/trademark/dealing-with-a-confusingly-similar-rejection.html https://www.bitlaw.com/guidance/trademark/dealing-with-a-con...

practicalpants 5y ago

The name is a clear satire/parody, they would be fine at least under US law.

dehrmann 5y ago
If you only used profanity, celebrity names, only had locations in North Korea, or something absurd, I'd agree. If you're marketing an equivalent product, nope.
cdash 5y ago
I am not sure that is the case. You definitely have an argument if this was only done in satire but when you are also truly offering a competing product while using a similar name it is hard to argue that it is just parody.
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  There was a comedian who successfully opened a coffee shop in the US named "Dumb Starbucks", logo and all. Every menu item was copied verbatim from the actual Starbucks menu but with the word "Dumb" added as a prefix. Despite a massive social media campaign that would have certainly caught the eye of Starbucks, they received no legal threats. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo_deCOd1HU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo_deCOd1HU
  - strken 5y ago
    This was done by an established comedian, made no profit, and immediately closed.
gnicholas 5y ago
Parody is a defense you can raise, but it's tricky to win. [1] And even if you do win, you've got to pay your lawyers who made the arguments for you. If I were arguing for W3W, I would point out that in some dialects of British English (where W3W is based), "what three words" and "what free words" would be pronounced identically. This means that in verbal communication, it would be very difficult to tell the two apart. That would make it harder to win a parody case, since in spoken language people wouldn't even be able to tell that you were saying something different. 1: https://www.lottfischer.com/blog/trademark-parody/ https://www.lottfischer.com/blog/trademark-parody/
dragonwriter 5y ago
Neither satire nor parody are fully immunized under US trademark law, and it doesn’t seem obviously outside the scope of what could be problematic from either an infringement or dilution liability standpoint notwithstanding parody. https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/trademark-parody-and-freedom-of-speech-70581/ https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/trademark-parody-and-freed...

arthurfm 5y ago

Using 'Free' could also be a nod to the fact that there are a lot of very similar sounding words in the What3Words system [1]. The What3Words word list is 40,000 words long. It is important that words in this list cannot be confused, otherwise they may be communicated incorrectly. For example band/banned, bare/bear, beat/beet are easily confused. A quick inspection of their word list finds the following words that sound very, very similar to one another: equivalence equivalents incidence incidents incite insight incompetence incompetents independence independents innocence innocents instance instants intense intents lightening lightning ordinance ordnance [1] https://cybergibbons.com/security-2/why-what3words-is-not-suitable-for-safety-critical-applications/ https://cybergibbons.com/security-2/why-what3words-is-not-su...

mbirth 5y ago
IIRC it’s designed so that similar sounding words are so far apart from each other that it’s clear that you’ve got something wrong. Meaning the w3w addresses are meant to be used with a vague idea of where you want to go.
- eddyg 5y ago
  There are far too many word “collisions” that result in nearby (but not close enough to find someone) locations. e.g.: https://twitter.com/matthewwilkes/status/1388772924627333121 https://twitter.com/matthewwilkes/status/1388772924627333121 https://twitter.com/cybergibbons/status/1387911525873197057 https://twitter.com/cybergibbons/status/1387911525873197057
- cybergibbons 5y ago
  Yeah, that's not true. https://cybergibbons.com/security-2/why-what3words-is-not-suitable-for-safety-critical-applications/ https://cybergibbons.com/security-2/why-what3words-is-not-su...
  - mbirth 5y ago
    From their FAQs[1]: > The overwhelming proportion of similar-sounding 3 word combinations will be so far apart that an error is obvious, However, it continues like this: > but there will still be cases where potentially confusable word combinations are nearby. Our Autosuggest feature actively intercepts possible errors or confusions and highlights other possibilities to the user, helping to identify what might need to be checked. So they rely on auto-suggest and people trying all suggested alternatives. [1] https://support.what3words.com/en/articles/3577589-how-are-the-words-assigned https://support.what3words.com/en/articles/3577589-how-are-t...