5 ms·
Row blows up over ownership of 'space marine' term
- jacques_chester 14y agoBy the way, this is a timely reminder. If you have a brand that you want to protect, go get a trademark registered. It'll cost you a few thousand dollars at most. Less if you play not-a-lawyer-lotto and do it yourself.
- tech-no-logical 14y agoanother reminder : if you're starting a brand, DO NOT simply throw together two generic words and expect to be able to hold on to your trademark. this is just silly.
- jacques_chester 14y agoRegistration doesn't necessarily depend on the novelty of the mark. People register word phrases all the time.
- cygx 14y agoThe problem with using generic terms is that the trademark doesn't trump the generic use. As you can have books about anything, and you're free to label your book accordingly (ie in a desciptive manner), trademarks on book titles are probably hard to enforce as long as the author is not actively deceptive by choice of artwork, book design etc (ask the trademark lawyer of your choice for a definitive answer). Having a book called 'The Life of Harry Potter' about an actual person with that name should be fine (this is not legal advice ;)). Having a book about a fictuous sorcerer of that name is a problem if you're not associated with JKR. At that point, copyright law might come into play as well.
- dalke 14y agoCommon words like "face" and "book"? "My" and "space"? "You" and "tube"? "Fox" and "news"? "Seven" and "eleven"? "Virgin" and "records"/"atlantic"/ ... ?
- tech-no-logical 14y agomost of those would be equally silly if they had a space between the two words. if "my space" was a brand, would they _really_ be able to forbid me to publish a book called "my space and time" based on that trademark ? if they actually could, the world would be even sillier than previously thought. and I'd see it burn, gladly.
- dalke 14y agoYou can use a trademark in a book title. There's a book titled "Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired--and Secretive--Company Really Works" and another "One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com." This is nominative use of the trademark. You can use a trademark in a title even when the book isn't about that trademarked product. There's a book titled "Amazon Warriors" which has nothing to do with Amazon. This is trademark fair use. Some trademarks create new words in order to avoid this possibility. So no, a hypothetical "My Space" could not forbid you to write a book titled "My Space and Time". There are exceptions, like if there's a reasonable likelihood of confusion. For example, the title "My Space and Time Magazine Award Winner" is almost certainly a no-no because it implies endorsement which isn't present.
- isleyaardvark 14y agoThose are common words used in an uncommon way. Using "space" as a prefix is a cliche in science fiction. "Spaceship", "space station". "The spacelanes have been packed with spacetraders this whole space year. The space police should send some space fighters on space patrol."
- dalke 14y agoI was commenting that the g'parent poster's assertion was incorrect, and not about the term "space marine." From the NewsRadio episode "Space": "Your space pod is so cold and drafty." "Fine, I'll get a space heater." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NDiBCD55-Y#t=10m40s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NDiBCD55-Y#t=10m40s
- bsphil 14y agoWasn't at all surprising to me. Have they never heard of Warhammer 40,000?
- wmeredith 14y agoThis got quite a lot of discussion or reddit the other day and someone supplied a link to term used in fiction from the 30's. it predates this company by about 50 years.
- sigzero 14y agoI think the Starblazer's cartoon had Space Marines and I think Robotech did as well.
- Symmetry 14y agoThere's no reason to expect that the people currently employed at Games Workshop know that the company had borrowed the term in the first place.
- masklinn 14y agoThat is unlikely. What is more likely — as there is significant historical evidence of it — is that GW has a legal department entirely run and staffed by the closest equivalent to ghouls we have.
- incision 14y ago>There's no reason to expect that the people currently employed at Games Workshop know that the company had borrowed the term in the first place. You say that like sticking two generic words next to each other is somehow novel or noteworthy. I wouldn't call it borrowing or infringing when the thing in question is utterly mundane.
- wmeredith 14y agoWell, apparently prior art has nothing to do with trademark. So, to paraphrase The Big Lebowski, they're not wrong, they're just assholes.
- brudgers 14y agoPrevious discussion of original story: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5176820 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5176820
- kryptiskt 14y agoA nifty revenge would be for the net to repurpose the term "space marine" as a synonym for some disgusting activity, like vomiting. For example, IP lawyers makes me space marine all over my carpet.
- masklinn 14y agoA much more nifty revenge would be to have Games Workshop stripped of all their trademarks, not to use a SciFi staple into nonsense.
- mherdeg 14y agoI'm surprised there isn't already a Streisand-like term for "misappropriating something very common as your trademark", as in the hypothetical "did you see last week when Oracle tried to Space Marine the Internet Oracle archives?" I guess Nissan has some prior art here.
- georgemcbay 14y agoAn even better ploy would be a large effort of people publishing e-books of short stories all with the term space marine in the title and the text. IANAL, but I believe the more widely used and genericized a term becomes, the more likely the trademark is to become unenforceable unless Games Workshop is willing to sue everyone who gets involved.
- Kurtz79 14y agoThe really absurd thing about the issue is how it is possible that someone gave they the exclusive right to use what in the end is just two standard english words stuck together.
- Samuel_Michon 14y agoYou mean, like 'Internet Explorer'? http://news.cnet.com/Microsoft-settles-trademark-case/2100-1001_3-212931.html http://news.cnet.com/Microsoft-settles-trademark-case/2100-1...
- nitrogen 14y agoNo, not like Internet Explorer. It's more like an application for browsing the Internet called The Internet Browser, or a device for toasting bread called The Bread Toaster, or a seaport for planes called The Air Port.
- DanBC 14y agoBut no Internet browsing software was called "explorer". If it had been called "Internet Browser" you'd have a point.
- protomyth 14y agoI would have gone with "Windows" since it was a common term for a UI element at the time.
- brazzy 14y ago
- lutusp 14y agoA quote: "The claim emerged when it was used to get an American ebook about the futuristic soldiers taken off Amazon." Surely there's a way to construct this sentence that doesn't move two key words so far apart. The distance between the related words "get" and "taken" is seven interloping words -- this isn't world class (for that one needs to learn German) but it's definitely a contender. How about "The claim emerged when Amazon was forced to pull an American ebook about the futuristic soldiers"? There was a time when publications employed as many editors and proofreaders as writers. (sigh) But apropos the topic, I was once forced to stop using the title "Sun Computer" for my sunrise and sunset computer page. The complainant? Sun Computer, of course. My page appeared before theirs in search engine listings, so they hired a lawyer to write and object to my use of the word "sun". After trying to apply common sense, I gave in. The full story: http://arachnoid.com/lutusp/sunrise/index.html#The__Sun_Computer__Story http://arachnoid.com/lutusp/sunrise/index.html#The__Sun_Comp...
- lenkite 14y agoWe better trademark the terms "Space Rangers", "Space Seals" or should that be "Speals"?, "DeltaSpace", "Space force", etc..