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Frats and sororities seek out Affinity to license their trademarks, it's not like Affinity really owns the Greek alphabet or something nefarious like that. In t

Frats and sororities seek out Affinity to license their trademarks, it's not like Affinity really owns the Greek alphabet or something nefarious like that. In this case, Spring just misinterpreted the whole thing with their automated system. In your case, were you actually selling merch with other organizations trademarks on them? That kind of seems silly to me that you expected to do that without giving the org any value/money back.

NathanKP 5y ago
Yeah this is what I was thinking as well. Frats and sororities typically have three greek letters to make up their names. So Affinity might be able to trademark a specific combination of three greek letters, but there is no way that a single greek letter on it's own stands as a trademark violation.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > Frats and sororities typically have three greek letters to make up their names. (1) Two is also typical. (2) The name of the organization is two or three letters in much the same way that the name of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is just four letters.
  - Scoundreller 5y ago
    > Two is also typical. Things are going to get spicy if we end up with more than 24 covid variants of concern. Unless we start numbering them, which is what we should have done all along.
    - thaumasiotes 5y ago
      Greek letters double as numerals up to iota.
    - argomo 5y ago
      We already number them... with vectors. Delta is really B.1.617.2. The Greek names are a convenience for talking to a broader lay audience.
      - Scoundreller 5y ago
        > The Greek names are a convenience for talking to a broader lay audience. For some reason, for this virus, we moved away from naming the variants after the city it was first detected in. Most people can picture Hong Kong or California better than the Greek alphabet. Flu names: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H3N2#Flu_spread,_by_season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H3N2...
        thaumasiotes 5y ago
        > For some reason, for this virus, we moved away from naming the variants after the city it was first detected in. Based on your link, it's very unusual to name them after cities. Cities mentioned: Brisbane Perth States / provinces / territories: Hong Kong Fujian New Caledonia Shanghai California New York Jiangsu Wisconsin Hiroshima Ohio Florida Yamagata Massachusetts Texas Phuket South Australia Victoria Countries: Malaysia Solomon Islands Switzerland How do you look at that list and think "it's usually the city"? It's the city in two out of four strains named for a location in Australia, and zero elsewhere. (The names Hong Kong, Shanghai, New York, Hiroshima, Yamagata and Phuket are ambiguous between a province and a city within that province. But the ambiguity is easily resolved by comparison to Fujian, Jiangsu, California, Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, Massachusetts, and Texas.)
        Scoundreller 5y ago
        I should have said geography and not cities, but point being it’s easier to work with geography terms than Greek letters (in sequence!) at an international level. Though you run the risk of people using different names in their language for the same place, and not even being consistent about when they substitute local terms.
BeFlatXIII 5y ago
In my college years, all the Greek chapter at my school contracted their merch out from unlicensed local vendors. The shadier, the better. Blatant trademark infringement of the House of Mouse® for sorority recruitment week? You'd best believe it.

NathanKP 5y ago

Yeah this is what I was thinking as well. Frats and sororities typically have three greek letters to make up their names. So Affinity might be able to trademark a specific combination of three greek letters, but there is no way that a single greek letter on it's own stands as a trademark violation.

thaumasiotes 5y ago
> Frats and sororities typically have three greek letters to make up their names. (1) Two is also typical. (2) The name of the organization is two or three letters in much the same way that the name of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is just four letters.
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  > Two is also typical. Things are going to get spicy if we end up with more than 24 covid variants of concern. Unless we start numbering them, which is what we should have done all along.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    Greek letters double as numerals up to iota.
  - argomo 5y ago
    We already number them... with vectors. Delta is really B.1.617.2. The Greek names are a convenience for talking to a broader lay audience.
    - Scoundreller 5y ago
      > The Greek names are a convenience for talking to a broader lay audience. For some reason, for this virus, we moved away from naming the variants after the city it was first detected in. Most people can picture Hong Kong or California better than the Greek alphabet. Flu names: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H3N2#Flu_spread,_by_season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H3N2...
      - thaumasiotes 5y ago
        > For some reason, for this virus, we moved away from naming the variants after the city it was first detected in. Based on your link, it's very unusual to name them after cities. Cities mentioned: Brisbane Perth States / provinces / territories: Hong Kong Fujian New Caledonia Shanghai California New York Jiangsu Wisconsin Hiroshima Ohio Florida Yamagata Massachusetts Texas Phuket South Australia Victoria Countries: Malaysia Solomon Islands Switzerland How do you look at that list and think "it's usually the city"? It's the city in two out of four strains named for a location in Australia, and zero elsewhere. (The names Hong Kong, Shanghai, New York, Hiroshima, Yamagata and Phuket are ambiguous between a province and a city within that province. But the ambiguity is easily resolved by comparison to Fujian, Jiangsu, California, Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, Massachusetts, and Texas.)
        Scoundreller 5y ago
        I should have said geography and not cities, but point being it’s easier to work with geography terms than Greek letters (in sequence!) at an international level. Though you run the risk of people using different names in their language for the same place, and not even being consistent about when they substitute local terms.

BeFlatXIII 5y ago

In my college years, all the Greek chapter at my school contracted their merch out from unlicensed local vendors. The shadier, the better. Blatant trademark infringement of the House of Mouse® for sorority recruitment week? You'd best believe it.