4 ms·

A trademark is a legal monopoly on a name. The issue isn't whether he worked hard or not, it's whether he deserves to have a legal monopoly on the use of the wo

A trademark is a legal monopoly on a name. The issue isn't whether he worked hard or not, it's whether he deserves to have a legal monopoly on the use of the word "Gaymer". As much as you argue "he trademarked it plain and simple" these people have the right to say "we don't think there should be a legal monopoly on that word, plain and simple." People should really think twice about what they try to remove from the public domain. It's a bit selfish and arrogant to think you can own words like "Gaymer".

pdeuchler 14y ago
Completely agreed. It was incredibly selfish of Bill Gates to trademark "Windows", just like it was arrogant for Steve Jobs to trademark "Apple". I eat apples all the time! I look out windows all the time! These trademarks offend me. These words should not be trademarked. Plain and simple.
- SEMW 14y ago
  Sarcasm doesn't make a poor comparison into a good one. The arguments for invalidity here are: (1) generic use, that 'gaymers' is in customary use in online communities to mean a gay gaymer, and (2) descriptiveness, that it's a combination of two descriptive words that are both characteristics of the relevant class (i.e. communities of gay gaymers). Neither of those is true of "Apple" for computers. Both'd be true of "Apple" for apples (i.e. the fruit) -- so if Apple started selling fruit, they wouldn't be able to register "Apple" as a trademark for that class of goods. "Windows" arguably is descriptive of MS's OS, though not as strongly as "gaymers" is for gay gamers. Thing is, "Windows" now has acquired distinctiveness: everyone associates it with Microsoft's operating system, as opposed to other systems which also use windows. That gets around descriptiveness (and customary use). That's not true for gaymers: "gaymer" clearly isn't exclusively associated in the average gaymer's mind with Chris Vizzini's site (as opposed to /r/gaymers, or just gay gamers in general). (N.B. IANAL, and in particular I'm only familiar with EU trademark law. I'd be surprised if US law was that different, but I don't know for sure, so the above may not be accurate for US law).

pdeuchler 14y ago

Completely agreed. It was incredibly selfish of Bill Gates to trademark "Windows", just like it was arrogant for Steve Jobs to trademark "Apple". I eat apples all the time! I look out windows all the time! These trademarks offend me. These words should not be trademarked. Plain and simple.

SEMW 14y ago
Sarcasm doesn't make a poor comparison into a good one. The arguments for invalidity here are: (1) generic use, that 'gaymers' is in customary use in online communities to mean a gay gaymer, and (2) descriptiveness, that it's a combination of two descriptive words that are both characteristics of the relevant class (i.e. communities of gay gaymers). Neither of those is true of "Apple" for computers. Both'd be true of "Apple" for apples (i.e. the fruit) -- so if Apple started selling fruit, they wouldn't be able to register "Apple" as a trademark for that class of goods. "Windows" arguably is descriptive of MS's OS, though not as strongly as "gaymers" is for gay gamers. Thing is, "Windows" now has acquired distinctiveness: everyone associates it with Microsoft's operating system, as opposed to other systems which also use windows. That gets around descriptiveness (and customary use). That's not true for gaymers: "gaymer" clearly isn't exclusively associated in the average gaymer's mind with Chris Vizzini's site (as opposed to /r/gaymers, or just gay gamers in general). (N.B. IANAL, and in particular I'm only familiar with EU trademark law. I'd be surprised if US law was that different, but I don't know for sure, so the above may not be accurate for US law).