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Fascinating. I assume Affinity Client Services would also protest multiple letters, e.g. “lambda lambda lambda”, to keep control over sorority/fraternity names
by thih9 5y ago
Fascinating.
I assume Affinity Client Services would also protest multiple letters, e.g. “lambda lambda lambda”, to keep control over sorority/fraternity names.
Is it actually legal to trademark a class of words in this way? Do they have legal right to prevent me from registering a student organization with a name that consists of three unique greek letters?
- kloch 5y agoNot sure if this would apply in the US but it has happened elsewhere: "It originally was designated as the "Porsche 901" (901 being its internal project number). A total of 82 cars were built as which were badged as 901s.[7] However, French automobile manufacturer Peugeot protested on the grounds that in France it had exclusive rights to car names formed by three numbers with a zero in the middle. Instead of selling the new model with a different name in France, Porsche changed the name to 911" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_911 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_911
- gradys 5y agoThis is Spring's "erring on the side of caution" trademark enforcement mechanism, not trademark law itself. I highly doubt that a court would acknowledge that Affinity has some trademark claim over all short strings of Greek letters.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> This is Spring’s “erring on the side of caution” trademark enforcement mechanism Is it? Or is it a mechanism of preemptive enforcement put in place in response to past action by ACS or some generally applicable legal rule requiring preemptive presumptive enforcement of known trademarks on platforms, hence the reference to Spring’s “legal obligations to protect the assets of Affinity Client Services” in the letter from legal?
- benrbray 5y agoIt's called a "chilling effect" [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect