4 ms·

Preventing companies named [adjective]+[product/service provided] doesn't seem sustainable.

by joshuat 3mo ago

Retric 3mo ago
Companies can be named after random nonsense, ‘pink catfish’ could easily be the world’s #1 supplier of firearms and nobody would find it strange. Caterpillar, Apple, Kellogg, etc really don’t have anything to do with the underlying product but neither do people’s names.
- zkmon 3mo ago
  They didn't have "open" or "free" as prefix.
  - lukan 3mo ago
    But apple still goes after real apple producers, who are older than apple. https://www.popsci.com/technology/apple-swiss-trademark/ https://www.popsci.com/technology/apple-swiss-trademark/ Something is wrong, when this is happening.
    - yorwba 3mo ago
      You link is incorrectly paraphrasing this Wired article https://www.wired.com/story/apple-vs-apples-trademark-battle/ https://www.wired.com/story/apple-vs-apples-trademark-battle... by claiming that Apple sued Swiss farmers, even though Apple sued the Institute of Intellectual Property instead. Apple won the case a month after publication of that article https://bvger.weblaw.ch/pdf/B-4493-2022_2023-07-26_c897bf22-1587-4f0f-9233-4255eaefad7d.pdf https://bvger.weblaw.ch/pdf/B-4493-2022_2023-07-26_c897bf22-... and the Swiss Fruit Union continues to use their apple logo (which looks completely different from any of the apple images Apple has trademarked) https://www.swissfruit.ch https://www.swissfruit.ch
  - saghm 3mo ago
    The nouns also aren't just generic terms for the type of products they're making. OpenApple wouldn't sound confusing in the same way for a laptop and phone manufacturer as it would for a company producing apples in a non-open way.
- a012 3mo ago
  And they went out of their way to sue anyone that dare to use the cat word in the name or anything resembling an apple in the logo.
- wbl 3mo ago
  Caterpillar does have a lot to do with the product. It crawls on a track and a photographer thought the track looked like a caterpillar .
  - Retric 3mo ago
    Caterpillar sells way more than tracked vehicles, and very much uses CAT as its logo. Nintendo could have named itself after playing cards, but that wouldn’t have kept up with its current business model.
bryanrasmussen 3mo ago
They haven't prevented that. They have prevented trademarking the terms, thus other people whose AI offerings are Open are in fact allowed to describe their products as an Open AI, I presume they are not allowed to describe their products as being OpenAI however as that would create consumer confusion. Furthermore they have not said anything about [adjective] being non trademarkable, they have said that you shouldn't be able to trademark things that have specific meaning in your industry, as Open has some specific meaning in the software industry. Thus you would probably be allowed to name your things [big] +[proudct/service provided] or in this case bigAI because big does not really imply a specific desirable quality in the Software industry. Now before you start talking of how you can see blah blah how big would be useful blah blah, as is the tradition whenever programmers encounter a legal decision that they do not agree with, it just ain't gonna work. I guess though I cannot prevent the inevitable, but nobody in IT says does it have the technical quality of "bigness" before purchasing, but they do about the quality of "Openness", so obviously some adjectives would be untrademarkable in this context, if you named your AI SecureAI probably no go, If you named your AI UglyAssAI probably fine.
Hamuko 3mo ago
This seems a lot more sustainable than allowing me to trademark a tire company called "WinterTire" and enabling me to sue any other tire company that tries to capitalise on my trademark. (And if WinterTire Co was anything like OpenAI, it'd be focused on making summer tires)
sucrosesucrose 3mo ago
Preventing the hijacking and privatization of short phrases and language in general is actually an excellent thing. I applaud this decision, and wish for the rules to become even tighter.
munk-a 3mo ago
This ruling is very early in the process and doesn't prevent anything - but given the more likely bad path outcome of this case for OpenAI it wouldn't disallow their usage of OpenAI but instead prevent them from shutting down competitors that claim to offer an open AI.

Preventing companies named [adjective]+[product/service provided] doesn't seem sustainable.

by joshuat 3mo ago

Preventing companies named [adjective]+[product/service provided] doesn't seem sustainable.

Companies can be named after random nonsense, ‘pink catfish’ could easily be the world’s #1 supplier of firearms and nobody would find it strange. Caterpillar, Apple, Kellogg, etc really don’t have anything to do with the underlying product but neither do people’s names.

zkmon 3mo ago
They didn't have "open" or "free" as prefix.
- lukan 3mo ago
  But apple still goes after real apple producers, who are older than apple. https://www.popsci.com/technology/apple-swiss-trademark/ https://www.popsci.com/technology/apple-swiss-trademark/ Something is wrong, when this is happening.
  - yorwba 3mo ago
    You link is incorrectly paraphrasing this Wired article https://www.wired.com/story/apple-vs-apples-trademark-battle/ https://www.wired.com/story/apple-vs-apples-trademark-battle... by claiming that Apple sued Swiss farmers, even though Apple sued the Institute of Intellectual Property instead. Apple won the case a month after publication of that article https://bvger.weblaw.ch/pdf/B-4493-2022_2023-07-26_c897bf22-1587-4f0f-9233-4255eaefad7d.pdf https://bvger.weblaw.ch/pdf/B-4493-2022_2023-07-26_c897bf22-... and the Swiss Fruit Union continues to use their apple logo (which looks completely different from any of the apple images Apple has trademarked) https://www.swissfruit.ch https://www.swissfruit.ch
- saghm 3mo ago
  The nouns also aren't just generic terms for the type of products they're making. OpenApple wouldn't sound confusing in the same way for a laptop and phone manufacturer as it would for a company producing apples in a non-open way.
a012 3mo ago
And they went out of their way to sue anyone that dare to use the cat word in the name or anything resembling an apple in the logo.
wbl 3mo ago
Caterpillar does have a lot to do with the product. It crawls on a track and a photographer thought the track looked like a caterpillar .
- Retric 3mo ago
  Caterpillar sells way more than tracked vehicles, and very much uses CAT as its logo. Nintendo could have named itself after playing cards, but that wouldn’t have kept up with its current business model.

bryanrasmussen 3mo ago

They haven't prevented that. They have prevented trademarking the terms, thus other people whose AI offerings are Open are in fact allowed to describe their products as an Open AI, I presume they are not allowed to describe their products as being OpenAI however as that would create consumer confusion. Furthermore they have not said anything about [adjective] being non trademarkable, they have said that you shouldn't be able to trademark things that have specific meaning in your industry, as Open has some specific meaning in the software industry. Thus you would probably be allowed to name your things [big] +[proudct/service provided] or in this case bigAI because big does not really imply a specific desirable quality in the Software industry. Now before you start talking of how you can see blah blah how big would be useful blah blah, as is the tradition whenever programmers encounter a legal decision that they do not agree with, it just ain't gonna work. I guess though I cannot prevent the inevitable, but nobody in IT says does it have the technical quality of "bigness" before purchasing, but they do about the quality of "Openness", so obviously some adjectives would be untrademarkable in this context, if you named your AI SecureAI probably no go, If you named your AI UglyAssAI probably fine.

Hamuko 3mo ago

This seems a lot more sustainable than allowing me to trademark a tire company called "WinterTire" and enabling me to sue any other tire company that tries to capitalise on my trademark. (And if WinterTire Co was anything like OpenAI, it'd be focused on making summer tires)

sucrosesucrose 3mo ago

Preventing the hijacking and privatization of short phrases and language in general is actually an excellent thing. I applaud this decision, and wish for the rules to become even tighter.

munk-a 3mo ago

This ruling is very early in the process and doesn't prevent anything - but given the more likely bad path outcome of this case for OpenAI it wouldn't disallow their usage of OpenAI but instead prevent them from shutting down competitors that claim to offer an open AI.