5 ms·

What if you work for months/years on a product, waiting for it to be ready-ish before announcing it to the public, only for a corporation to steal your name a f

What if you work for months/years on a product, waiting for it to be ready-ish before announcing it to the public, only for a corporation to steal your name a few weeks before launch?

bpodgursky 5y ago
Then get a different name. Meta clearly had no mindshare, because nobody in this thread has ever heard of it. (and frankly it's still a bad name because it's a super common word. it was doomed as a product name anyway.)
- pietrovismara 5y ago
  You don't just "get a different name". You may already have a logo you paid well for. You may have prepared advertising. You may have references to the name everywhere in your code. And so on. Also even if it was easy and costless to get a new name, it still isn't fair that the big guy can come and simply take it from you without consequence.
  - viraptor 5y ago
    Not just that. In the worst case, they may have a container full of their devices ready to go with "Meta" branding on everything. That's a significant cost to recall and redo.
- munk-a 5y ago
  If they've got a site with branding and all that jazz rearing and ready for launch then no - it's not their fault the giant stepped on them. It would even appear (from the letter) that facebook was already aware of this name conflict and decided to go ahead with the rename anyways. Also Meta is a terrible name - for both companies., but that's beside the point (but it's like really stupid).
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  > Then get a different name. Meta clearly had no mindshare That doesn't matter, they own the trademark.
  - bpodgursky 5y ago
    No they don't. You have to prove significance in a particular market to get trademark protections; you don't get trademark protection over the word as used in all contexts (and since they have no marketshare, because it hasn't launched, there's no conflict at all).
- jlkuester7 5y ago
  > it's still a bad name because it's a super common word. I said the same thing about matrix.org back in ~2015 when I first heard of the project. Fast forward to now, though, and "Matrix Room" links are ubiquitous among open source projects....

What if you work for months/years on a product, waiting for it to be ready-ish before announcing it to the public, only for a corporation to steal your name a few weeks before launch?

bpodgursky 5y ago

Then get a different name. Meta clearly had no mindshare, because nobody in this thread has ever heard of it. (and frankly it's still a bad name because it's a super common word. it was doomed as a product name anyway.)

pietrovismara 5y ago
You don't just "get a different name". You may already have a logo you paid well for. You may have prepared advertising. You may have references to the name everywhere in your code. And so on. Also even if it was easy and costless to get a new name, it still isn't fair that the big guy can come and simply take it from you without consequence.
- viraptor 5y ago
  Not just that. In the worst case, they may have a container full of their devices ready to go with "Meta" branding on everything. That's a significant cost to recall and redo.
munk-a 5y ago
If they've got a site with branding and all that jazz rearing and ready for launch then no - it's not their fault the giant stepped on them. It would even appear (from the letter) that facebook was already aware of this name conflict and decided to go ahead with the rename anyways. Also Meta is a terrible name - for both companies., but that's beside the point (but it's like really stupid).
heavyset_go 5y ago
> Then get a different name. Meta clearly had no mindshare That doesn't matter, they own the trademark.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  No they don't. You have to prove significance in a particular market to get trademark protections; you don't get trademark protection over the word as used in all contexts (and since they have no marketshare, because it hasn't launched, there's no conflict at all).
jlkuester7 5y ago
> it's still a bad name because it's a super common word. I said the same thing about matrix.org back in ~2015 when I first heard of the project. Fast forward to now, though, and "Matrix Room" links are ubiquitous among open source projects....