8 ms·

Apple likes our name and so do we

122 points by JacobAldridge 12y ago

pling 12y ago
Like Apple's lawyers would give you a choice anyway and they know it. Bend over peons, we now own your trademark.
dang 12y ago
Related: http://www.news.com.au/finance/small-business/apple-swallows-aussie-startup-companys-name-healthkit-and-their-worldembracing-idea/story-fn9evb64-1226943793182 http://www.news.com.au/finance/small-business/apple-swallows... and http://blog.daemonl.com/2014/06/healthkit-apple-stole-our-business-name.html http://blog.daemonl.com/2014/06/healthkit-apple-stole-our-bu....
owenwil 12y ago
It looks like this company doesn't own any trademarks or copyright on the HealthKit name, but Apple does. Not sure how they can be upset if they haven't even tried to protect their brand. They filed the trademarks some months ago: http://www.macrumors.com/2014/05/30/healthbook-healthkit-trademarks/ http://www.macrumors.com/2014/05/30/healthbook-healthkit-tra...
- rodgerd 12y ago
  id Software beat a trademark troll trying to claim their name by demonstrating they'd been trading under it.
- shakethemonkey 12y ago
  They own a common-law trademark, which is perfectly defensible. Apple is in the wrong here.
  - astrodust 12y ago
    In what country, Australia? I don't think Apple is too concerned. If HealthKit had filed for trademarks internationally then they'd have a leg to stand on. Instead they're left moaning about how Apple has named some technology, not a packaged product per-se, with a name similar to their company. Apple's legal team was no doubt aware of HealthKit, had done some analysis, and decided that there was no real issue. HealthKit can do their thing in Australia.
- tiquorsj 12y ago
  Trademark rgistration does not grant the mark, use in commerce does.
  - Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
    That's not true, at least not in the US, and here's a lovely example of it. A few years ago DC Comics decided to sue DC Shoes over their logo which, like DC Comics logo at the time, used the letters DC and a star. Turns out DC hadn't trademarked the logo, despite having used it (and variants) for decades so they lost. DC Shoes HAD trademarked it and successfully counter sued and DC Comics, despite having used a similar logo for a lot longer, were forced to pay DC Shoes for the rights (at least until they ultimately changed their logo).
sspiff 12y ago
Unrelated to the topic, but the scrolling mechanism on that site is terrible. I can't use my wheel, arrow keys or page down/up. I have to use the arrow images in the bottom left corner to scroll the page content.
- vidyesh 12y ago
  Also no permalink to the blog post is a horrible path. The old published content is already lost in the void.
bruceboughton 12y ago
HealthKit is just the name of the API, like WebKit, UIKit, etc. I doubt it will be the name of the public facing product.
- tjogin 12y ago
  Correct, the app is called Health.
Frozenlock 12y ago
I'm a little confused by the domain names and trademarks relations. If I use a trademark, say Ziglou, can I expect to have a right to every domain names with Ziglou? Ziglou.com, Ziglou.net, Ziglou.org, Ziglou.some-new-top-level-name... Can I expect to also have right to a top domain? Ziglou.ziglou? Inversely, can one expect to have an established trademark just because of a domain name? In this case, HealthKit?
- samastur 12y ago
  No, you shouldn't expect that. When you register a trademark, you do it for a specific region (country, EU...) and for a particular purpose (industry). In principle you could try to trademark a name everywhere in the world for every purpose imaginable, but it would be very very hard since any owner of an existing trademark can object if they think there is a chance of your name causing confusion with theirs and the resolution process can take time and be ultimately unsuccessful for you. So nobody actually does that. Strength of a trademark really lies in both a) being registered and b) being actively used (first by you, but also by others). I think it is more useful to think of a domain as a digital equivalent of a sign hanged above the shop entrance. I think it affords you roughly the same level of protection. IANAL, but I have registered a trademark years ago and had at that time spent some effort in getting acquainted with laws. They may have changed since.
dsymonds 12y ago
Meh, I can't see anyone honestly getting confused between the two. Apple's HealthKit (http://www.apple.com/ios/ios8/health/ http://www.apple.com/ios/ios8/health/) is for developers to work with, and this other HealthKit (https://www.healthkit.com/about-us https://www.healthkit.com/about-us) is for patients and medical practitioners.
- geocar 12y ago
  People are already getting confused about it.
tommoor 12y ago
Apple missed a perfectly good opportunity to call it "MedKit" if you ask me
- blackoil 12y ago
  Med / medical related to doctors, diseases while health is more about better living.
- philmcc 12y ago
  "Health" feels positive to me. "Med" feels ameliorative. Stay Healthy vs Stay Medicined...
  - msane 12y ago
    Parent is making a game / DOOM pun.
    - Blahah 12y ago
      Medkits go at least as far back as Wolfenstein (1981).
      - msane 12y ago
        Ahah yes.
re 12y ago
From http://blog.daemonl.com/2014/06/healthkit-apple-stole-our-business-name.html http://blog.daemonl.com/2014/06/healthkit-apple-stole-our-bu... > But not only HealthKit, The whole 'Kit naming scheme Apple's been using the "kit" naming convention for a much longer time (AppKit, IOKit, WebKit)--I think it originates in NeXTSTEP, if not earlier.
- daemonl 12y ago
  Fair point about the series, but apple own i* and *Kit. Anything else?
  - daemonl 12y ago
    Oh, and rectangles and apples.
    - spacemanmatt 12y ago
      Swiss clocks. Noooo, wait, they lost-or-settled that one because it would look too bad for them to play hardball (as usual) over a public icon that well known.
- blueskin_ 12y ago
  ...and *kit goes back much further than apple.
miles 12y ago
Regarding the trademark issue: if the other company does use its name as a brand as well as a trade name, it may have trademark rights in its name, even if they have never applied to register it. [1] It was certainly well known by Apple that healthkit.com was already registered and in use by a company already working on a very similar product. As for copyright, it does not apply to names: What is not protected by copyright? ... Names, Titles, Short Phrases, or Expressions [2] Finally, Apple seems to think it's easier asking for forgiveness than permission when it comes to naming products [3] [1] http://www.quora.com/Trademarks/If-someone-has-a-company-name-but-has-not-trademarked-it-can-I-trademark-it-and-sue-them-b-c-of-the-name-even-though-they-used-it-first http://www.quora.com/Trademarks/If-someone-has-a-company-nam... [2] http://www.legalzoom.com/intellectual-property-rights/copyrights/5-things-you-cant-copyright http://www.legalzoom.com/intellectual-property-rights/copyri... [3] http://www.itnews.com.au/News/71042,cisco-expects-deal-with-apple-on-iphone-trademark.aspx http://www.itnews.com.au/News/71042,cisco-expects-deal-with-...
- kennywinker 12y ago
  It doesn't change anything you've said, but it's worth noting that Apple has backed down on something like this when pressed: http://appleinsider.com/articles/05/02/18/apple_to_rename_rendezvous_technology_bonjour http://appleinsider.com/articles/05/02/18/apple_to_rename_re...
credo 12y ago
Many iOS frameworks are named with a "Kit" suffix (UIKit, MapKit, StoreKit, EventKit etc.) There is nothing odd in some new iOS frameworks following a similar convention. If anything, I think Apple's new framework is going to generate a lot of marketing/PR value for the company. I think they realize this :)
- shard972 12y ago
  Lets have a look at how depressed the owner of the company must feel right now: http://www.news.com.au/finance/small-business/apple-swallows-aussie-startup-companys-name-healthkit-and-their-worldembracing-idea/story-fn9evb64-1226943793182 http://www.news.com.au/finance/small-business/apple-swallows... Yep, looks devastated.
  - stedaniels 12y ago
    Because news.com.au sent a photographer round to take the photo straight away. Or because news companies never use stock or press photography.
piokoch 12y ago
Funny but... Some time ago Apple was after Polish grocery store [1] since they have an apple in their logo (not even closely similar to Apple's logo) and use domain name a.pl... I think that hilarity of above mentioned action still remains unbeaten, however, as I see, Apple is trying very, very hard. [1] http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2409669,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2409669,00.asp
- Alterlife 12y ago
  That case is different. Apple was clearly in the wrong there. Here Apple's gone ahead and released an API (product?) with the same name as an existing company. They're not going after the company legally. Atleast, not yet. But perhaps that comes after Apple's healthkit is more well known than the existing HealthKit.
- davidgerard 12y ago
  They did this in Australia too - sued Woolworth's Supermarket for having a logo that looked like a W made from apple skin. http://www.theage.com.au/business/apple-bites-over-woolworths-logo-20091005-ghzr.html http://www.theage.com.au/business/apple-bites-over-woolworth... I wondered at the time when Apple would sue actual apples. http://newstechnica.com/2009/10/05/apple-inc-sues-apples-for-trademark-violation/ http://newstechnica.com/2009/10/05/apple-inc-sues-apples-for...
damian2000 12y ago
I think they're preempting a problem that doesn't exist. There's many APIs that don't own the .com of the same name, but it never causes much of a problem... angular.com cocoa.com node.com flask.com bootstrap.com backbone.com etc.
- Blahah 12y ago
  The domains you've listed are all common words, so claiming exclusive use of them would not be reasonable. HealthKit is not a common word, so it seems more reasonable for an entity to expect exclusive use of it as a trademark.
  - curiouscats 12y ago
    I don't think you can expect to slap two common words together and prevent anyone from using those words in any way everywhere. If you make up some new word Exxon etc. then maybe. For slapping two common words together there have to be sensible limits on everyone else being prohibited. If you own things like onetwo.com great that may well be a reason for someone else to be dissuaded from naming a consumer product that because they want an easy to remember domain. Thinking all uses of HealthKit are bad seems more to me like Facebook thinking anyone using "book" prefaced by something else is doing wrong - which I think is silly. I would be amazed if there are not many previous uses of health kit - just removing the space hardly seems an amazing transformation to me.
_frog 12y ago
There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding here about what Apple's HealthKit is. HealthKit is simply the name for the API framework Apple is making available to developers, following in the naming conventions of UIKit, WebKit, SpriteKit and so on. HealthKit is not, however, a name that consumers will ever actually come across in using their device. Apple's own app on top of HealthKit is simply called "Health", and I highly doubt the string "HealthKit" appears anywhere in that app's UI.
- 001sky 12y ago
  This is a good qualification, but not all "products" need be consumer-facing products. That's just a play on words for "retail" sales vs business or professional sales. Its a seperate point to say its a 'feature' not a product and thus is not actually sold to anyone (and thus distinct).
  - vicbrooker 12y ago
    It's a huge distinction if formal legal action happens because Apple can establish quite easily that they have relied on the Kit format for previous software, whereas HealthKit.com doesn't (AFAIK) have any major traction in the software space. Law student here, IANAL, so take this with a huge grain of salt. Either way, in Australia, both parties would apply under Classes 9 and 44 which covers all computer software and medical services respectively. It's likely that Apple will win on class 9 as "Kit" is far better known in the software community than "HealthKit.com"; and arguably 44 too, depending on Healthkit.com's traction in the medical field. It's unlikely that Apple's HealthKit and HealthKit's HealthKit would cause confusion in the market - but it makes a silly story to say that Apple's Health (which may have overlapping functionality with the preexisting HealthKit). Gotta love the media.
  - _frog 12y ago
    And regardless, there's unlikely to be overlap between the markets for these two products. HealthKit.com is somewhat hard to navigate, but the impression I get is that their product is aimed at medical practitioners. I doubt they overlap with the mobile developer demographic to any significant extent. Though I'm curious to hear from someone with more legal knowledge than me: would the fact that there's very little chance of collision between these names protect either party from legal repercussions?
staunch 12y ago
Change your apps name. Not that big of a deal. Steve Sent from my iPhone
vicbrooker 12y ago
Aussie law student here. IANAL. I haven't studied IP in a year or so but I'm not convinced that the startup has a huge claim to the name HealthKit at all. I've looked at both US and local law in the past so I'll try and explain in case it helps any founders reading this. "HealthKit", in the context of both healthkit.com and the dev kit describes the intend purpose of the IP. The startup seems to produce a software "kit" for health practitioners and the Apple version is obviously a dev kit that deals with the new health app. Any trademark that describes intended purpose is called a 'descriptive mark' (lawyers are an imaginative bunch) and are generally really hard to protect. You need to show evidence of market use, and for lack of a better word, traction. Apple actually seem to have the stronger argument here: MapKit, GameKit, UIKit etc. have been used for ages and are recognised in the software community as being associated with Apple. This would be categorised as a software trademark and I'm not sure that the startup can establish a strong argument that they've a) established their brand in the software market and that b) they should be able to exclude Apple to prevent confusion. This is consistent with both Aus and US law to my knowledge, and successfully establishing themselves in the Australian market, or filing a trademark here won't bind the US anyway. Bottom line, the more generic and descriptive your name (in context), the harder it will be to successfully defend it. Owning a .com doesn't count for much, if anything (even trying to register a generic descriptive word + .com - mattress.com was registered unsuccessfully IIRC). You need to get eyeballs on it and sell stuff to win this with a common law/equitable trademark. Considering I hadn't heard of HealthKit.com until this happened they might struggle with this. If you're a founder and you want to protect your name, pick a name that is something arbitrary or suggestive. Healthkit.com's claims would be much stronger if it was named Potato or Voozle and Apple used the same name for a dev kit. It makes it far harder to communicate your product quickly but thats the tradeoff. Names that invoke your product through onomatopoeia, like 'Twitter' strike a good balance between effective communication and defensibility. They're bloody hard to come up with though. Hopefully, HealthKit.com use this as an opportunity to get their message out to their target audience, they're getting an audience on hacker news but its doctors they should be going for. As an aside, it's interesting to see how much of the media is confusing the HealthKit dev kit with the Health app. Helps with the story I guess.
CmonDev 12y ago
In the world of cyber-squatting and start-up-coming-soon pages, the one that gets more famous first wins.
blueskin_ 12y ago
And now just wait for these guys to be patent trolled into oblivion :(
andyhmltn 12y ago
(Off topic) Jesus christ. The hijacked they scroll event and replace it with buttons
- grahamel 12y ago
  Oh my, that's awful. Especially with two different down arrows. On the about us page there isn't any buttons at all, so you can't read all the text.
  - spacemanmatt 12y ago
    "Why yes, disabling the default UI controls seems like a brilliant plan."
- spacemanmatt 12y ago
  I have scrolled through a lot of comments to find the first one seizing on that particular bit of website implementation fuckery. I'm glad it's not just me fuming a bit about that! I am...disappoint.
- juhq 12y ago
  This really is horrible. I don't even care anymore about what they wrote, breaking default ui behaviour is bad bad bad.
- talles 12y ago
  I thought it was bugged here in my Firefox, so it seems it is not. What a horrible decision.
dctoedt 12y ago
Something like this happened with the Macintosh trademark as well -- Apple had to buy the right to the name from McIntosh Laboratory, which made high-end audio gear. [1] [1] http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/mac/30-years-mac-how-macintosh-got-its-name-24578/ http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/mac/30-years-mac-how-macintos...
vincentbarr 12y ago
Given the usability of said company's website, Apple would be doing web users a favor acquiring that domain.
tomdotom 12y ago
Apple will have certainly Googled your domain. Without been specific to Apple, it's a common practice of large multinational companies to perform international searches for registered and unregistered trademarks as well as any common usage of the marks they are interested in using. If any potential registrations, or strong claims on the mark, are found in the same field of business a specialist will probably be contracted to perform a more in depth investigation. I would be surprised if Apple had not taken the time to assess your claims on the HealthKit mark. I can only guess that they did and decided that there was either: a) no conflict between your businesses and hence use of the mark - in which case you should be happy, yet careful not infringe on Apple's usage (keep your eye out for a trademark registration very soon). b) they don't think you have any strong rights on the mark and chose to use it. It may be fun to ask around the office and see if anybody remembers been contacted with out of the ordinary questions regarding the length of your company's operations and asking questions about the HealthKit domain/name in general.
mcmillion 12y ago
I have to click a button to scroll the text on your site.
jfranche 12y ago
How did the whole Apple Records v Apple thing work out...
mrfancypants 12y ago
They never registered the business name. The folks in charge at the (non-Apple) Healthkit should learn how to do business before having a whinge. Move along, nothing to see here.
- mrfancypants 12y ago
  downvote without contributing to discussion? smooth.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

122 points by JacobAldridge 12y ago

pling 12y ago

Like Apple's lawyers would give you a choice anyway and they know it. Bend over peons, we now own your trademark.

dang 12y ago

Related: http://www.news.com.au/finance/small-business/apple-swallows-aussie-startup-companys-name-healthkit-and-their-worldembracing-idea/story-fn9evb64-1226943793182 http://www.news.com.au/finance/small-business/apple-swallows... and http://blog.daemonl.com/2014/06/healthkit-apple-stole-our-business-name.html http://blog.daemonl.com/2014/06/healthkit-apple-stole-our-bu....

owenwil 12y ago

It looks like this company doesn't own any trademarks or copyright on the HealthKit name, but Apple does. Not sure how they can be upset if they haven't even tried to protect their brand. They filed the trademarks some months ago: http://www.macrumors.com/2014/05/30/healthbook-healthkit-trademarks/ http://www.macrumors.com/2014/05/30/healthbook-healthkit-tra...

rodgerd 12y ago
id Software beat a trademark troll trying to claim their name by demonstrating they'd been trading under it.
shakethemonkey 12y ago
They own a common-law trademark, which is perfectly defensible. Apple is in the wrong here.
- astrodust 12y ago
  In what country, Australia? I don't think Apple is too concerned. If HealthKit had filed for trademarks internationally then they'd have a leg to stand on. Instead they're left moaning about how Apple has named some technology, not a packaged product per-se, with a name similar to their company. Apple's legal team was no doubt aware of HealthKit, had done some analysis, and decided that there was no real issue. HealthKit can do their thing in Australia.
tiquorsj 12y ago
Trademark rgistration does not grant the mark, use in commerce does.
- Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
  That's not true, at least not in the US, and here's a lovely example of it. A few years ago DC Comics decided to sue DC Shoes over their logo which, like DC Comics logo at the time, used the letters DC and a star. Turns out DC hadn't trademarked the logo, despite having used it (and variants) for decades so they lost. DC Shoes HAD trademarked it and successfully counter sued and DC Comics, despite having used a similar logo for a lot longer, were forced to pay DC Shoes for the rights (at least until they ultimately changed their logo).

sspiff 12y ago

Unrelated to the topic, but the scrolling mechanism on that site is terrible. I can't use my wheel, arrow keys or page down/up. I have to use the arrow images in the bottom left corner to scroll the page content.

vidyesh 12y ago
Also no permalink to the blog post is a horrible path. The old published content is already lost in the void.

bruceboughton 12y ago

HealthKit is just the name of the API, like WebKit, UIKit, etc. I doubt it will be the name of the public facing product.

tjogin 12y ago
Correct, the app is called Health.

Frozenlock 12y ago

I'm a little confused by the domain names and trademarks relations. If I use a trademark, say Ziglou, can I expect to have a right to every domain names with Ziglou? Ziglou.com, Ziglou.net, Ziglou.org, Ziglou.some-new-top-level-name... Can I expect to also have right to a top domain? Ziglou.ziglou? Inversely, can one expect to have an established trademark just because of a domain name? In this case, HealthKit?

samastur 12y ago
No, you shouldn't expect that. When you register a trademark, you do it for a specific region (country, EU...) and for a particular purpose (industry). In principle you could try to trademark a name everywhere in the world for every purpose imaginable, but it would be very very hard since any owner of an existing trademark can object if they think there is a chance of your name causing confusion with theirs and the resolution process can take time and be ultimately unsuccessful for you. So nobody actually does that. Strength of a trademark really lies in both a) being registered and b) being actively used (first by you, but also by others). I think it is more useful to think of a domain as a digital equivalent of a sign hanged above the shop entrance. I think it affords you roughly the same level of protection. IANAL, but I have registered a trademark years ago and had at that time spent some effort in getting acquainted with laws. They may have changed since.

dsymonds 12y ago

Meh, I can't see anyone honestly getting confused between the two. Apple's HealthKit (http://www.apple.com/ios/ios8/health/ http://www.apple.com/ios/ios8/health/) is for developers to work with, and this other HealthKit (https://www.healthkit.com/about-us https://www.healthkit.com/about-us) is for patients and medical practitioners.

geocar 12y ago
People are already getting confused about it.

tommoor 12y ago

Apple missed a perfectly good opportunity to call it "MedKit" if you ask me

blackoil 12y ago
Med / medical related to doctors, diseases while health is more about better living.
philmcc 12y ago
"Health" feels positive to me. "Med" feels ameliorative. Stay Healthy vs Stay Medicined...
- msane 12y ago
  Parent is making a game / DOOM pun.
  - Blahah 12y ago
    Medkits go at least as far back as Wolfenstein (1981).
    - msane 12y ago
      Ahah yes.

re 12y ago

From http://blog.daemonl.com/2014/06/healthkit-apple-stole-our-business-name.html http://blog.daemonl.com/2014/06/healthkit-apple-stole-our-bu... > But not only HealthKit, The whole 'Kit naming scheme Apple's been using the "kit" naming convention for a much longer time (AppKit, IOKit, WebKit)--I think it originates in NeXTSTEP, if not earlier.

daemonl 12y ago
Fair point about the series, but apple own i* and *Kit. Anything else?
- daemonl 12y ago
  Oh, and rectangles and apples.
  - spacemanmatt 12y ago
    Swiss clocks. Noooo, wait, they lost-or-settled that one because it would look too bad for them to play hardball (as usual) over a public icon that well known.
blueskin_ 12y ago
...and *kit goes back much further than apple.

miles 12y ago

Regarding the trademark issue: if the other company does use its name as a brand as well as a trade name, it may have trademark rights in its name, even if they have never applied to register it. [1] It was certainly well known by Apple that healthkit.com was already registered and in use by a company already working on a very similar product. As for copyright, it does not apply to names: What is not protected by copyright? ... Names, Titles, Short Phrases, or Expressions [2] Finally, Apple seems to think it's easier asking for forgiveness than permission when it comes to naming products [3] [1] http://www.quora.com/Trademarks/If-someone-has-a-company-name-but-has-not-trademarked-it-can-I-trademark-it-and-sue-them-b-c-of-the-name-even-though-they-used-it-first http://www.quora.com/Trademarks/If-someone-has-a-company-nam... [2] http://www.legalzoom.com/intellectual-property-rights/copyrights/5-things-you-cant-copyright http://www.legalzoom.com/intellectual-property-rights/copyri... [3] http://www.itnews.com.au/News/71042,cisco-expects-deal-with-apple-on-iphone-trademark.aspx http://www.itnews.com.au/News/71042,cisco-expects-deal-with-...

kennywinker 12y ago
It doesn't change anything you've said, but it's worth noting that Apple has backed down on something like this when pressed: http://appleinsider.com/articles/05/02/18/apple_to_rename_rendezvous_technology_bonjour http://appleinsider.com/articles/05/02/18/apple_to_rename_re...

credo 12y ago

Many iOS frameworks are named with a "Kit" suffix (UIKit, MapKit, StoreKit, EventKit etc.) There is nothing odd in some new iOS frameworks following a similar convention. If anything, I think Apple's new framework is going to generate a lot of marketing/PR value for the company. I think they realize this :)

shard972 12y ago
Lets have a look at how depressed the owner of the company must feel right now: http://www.news.com.au/finance/small-business/apple-swallows-aussie-startup-companys-name-healthkit-and-their-worldembracing-idea/story-fn9evb64-1226943793182 http://www.news.com.au/finance/small-business/apple-swallows... Yep, looks devastated.
- stedaniels 12y ago
  Because news.com.au sent a photographer round to take the photo straight away. Or because news companies never use stock or press photography.

piokoch 12y ago

Funny but... Some time ago Apple was after Polish grocery store [1] since they have an apple in their logo (not even closely similar to Apple's logo) and use domain name a.pl... I think that hilarity of above mentioned action still remains unbeaten, however, as I see, Apple is trying very, very hard. [1] http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2409669,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2409669,00.asp

Alterlife 12y ago
That case is different. Apple was clearly in the wrong there. Here Apple's gone ahead and released an API (product?) with the same name as an existing company. They're not going after the company legally. Atleast, not yet. But perhaps that comes after Apple's healthkit is more well known than the existing HealthKit.
davidgerard 12y ago
They did this in Australia too - sued Woolworth's Supermarket for having a logo that looked like a W made from apple skin. http://www.theage.com.au/business/apple-bites-over-woolworths-logo-20091005-ghzr.html http://www.theage.com.au/business/apple-bites-over-woolworth... I wondered at the time when Apple would sue actual apples. http://newstechnica.com/2009/10/05/apple-inc-sues-apples-for-trademark-violation/ http://newstechnica.com/2009/10/05/apple-inc-sues-apples-for...

damian2000 12y ago

I think they're preempting a problem that doesn't exist. There's many APIs that don't own the .com of the same name, but it never causes much of a problem... angular.com cocoa.com node.com flask.com bootstrap.com backbone.com etc.

Blahah 12y ago
The domains you've listed are all common words, so claiming exclusive use of them would not be reasonable. HealthKit is not a common word, so it seems more reasonable for an entity to expect exclusive use of it as a trademark.
- curiouscats 12y ago
  I don't think you can expect to slap two common words together and prevent anyone from using those words in any way everywhere. If you make up some new word Exxon etc. then maybe. For slapping two common words together there have to be sensible limits on everyone else being prohibited. If you own things like onetwo.com great that may well be a reason for someone else to be dissuaded from naming a consumer product that because they want an easy to remember domain. Thinking all uses of HealthKit are bad seems more to me like Facebook thinking anyone using "book" prefaced by something else is doing wrong - which I think is silly. I would be amazed if there are not many previous uses of health kit - just removing the space hardly seems an amazing transformation to me.

_frog 12y ago

There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding here about what Apple's HealthKit is. HealthKit is simply the name for the API framework Apple is making available to developers, following in the naming conventions of UIKit, WebKit, SpriteKit and so on. HealthKit is not, however, a name that consumers will ever actually come across in using their device. Apple's own app on top of HealthKit is simply called "Health", and I highly doubt the string "HealthKit" appears anywhere in that app's UI.

001sky 12y ago
This is a good qualification, but not all "products" need be consumer-facing products. That's just a play on words for "retail" sales vs business or professional sales. Its a seperate point to say its a 'feature' not a product and thus is not actually sold to anyone (and thus distinct).
- vicbrooker 12y ago
  It's a huge distinction if formal legal action happens because Apple can establish quite easily that they have relied on the Kit format for previous software, whereas HealthKit.com doesn't (AFAIK) have any major traction in the software space. Law student here, IANAL, so take this with a huge grain of salt. Either way, in Australia, both parties would apply under Classes 9 and 44 which covers all computer software and medical services respectively. It's likely that Apple will win on class 9 as "Kit" is far better known in the software community than "HealthKit.com"; and arguably 44 too, depending on Healthkit.com's traction in the medical field. It's unlikely that Apple's HealthKit and HealthKit's HealthKit would cause confusion in the market - but it makes a silly story to say that Apple's Health (which may have overlapping functionality with the preexisting HealthKit). Gotta love the media.
- _frog 12y ago
  And regardless, there's unlikely to be overlap between the markets for these two products. HealthKit.com is somewhat hard to navigate, but the impression I get is that their product is aimed at medical practitioners. I doubt they overlap with the mobile developer demographic to any significant extent. Though I'm curious to hear from someone with more legal knowledge than me: would the fact that there's very little chance of collision between these names protect either party from legal repercussions?

staunch 12y ago

Change your apps name. Not that big of a deal. Steve Sent from my iPhone

vicbrooker 12y ago

Aussie law student here. IANAL. I haven't studied IP in a year or so but I'm not convinced that the startup has a huge claim to the name HealthKit at all. I've looked at both US and local law in the past so I'll try and explain in case it helps any founders reading this. "HealthKit", in the context of both healthkit.com and the dev kit describes the intend purpose of the IP. The startup seems to produce a software "kit" for health practitioners and the Apple version is obviously a dev kit that deals with the new health app. Any trademark that describes intended purpose is called a 'descriptive mark' (lawyers are an imaginative bunch) and are generally really hard to protect. You need to show evidence of market use, and for lack of a better word, traction. Apple actually seem to have the stronger argument here: MapKit, GameKit, UIKit etc. have been used for ages and are recognised in the software community as being associated with Apple. This would be categorised as a software trademark and I'm not sure that the startup can establish a strong argument that they've a) established their brand in the software market and that b) they should be able to exclude Apple to prevent confusion. This is consistent with both Aus and US law to my knowledge, and successfully establishing themselves in the Australian market, or filing a trademark here won't bind the US anyway. Bottom line, the more generic and descriptive your name (in context), the harder it will be to successfully defend it. Owning a .com doesn't count for much, if anything (even trying to register a generic descriptive word + .com - mattress.com was registered unsuccessfully IIRC). You need to get eyeballs on it and sell stuff to win this with a common law/equitable trademark. Considering I hadn't heard of HealthKit.com until this happened they might struggle with this. If you're a founder and you want to protect your name, pick a name that is something arbitrary or suggestive. Healthkit.com's claims would be much stronger if it was named Potato or Voozle and Apple used the same name for a dev kit. It makes it far harder to communicate your product quickly but thats the tradeoff. Names that invoke your product through onomatopoeia, like 'Twitter' strike a good balance between effective communication and defensibility. They're bloody hard to come up with though. Hopefully, HealthKit.com use this as an opportunity to get their message out to their target audience, they're getting an audience on hacker news but its doctors they should be going for. As an aside, it's interesting to see how much of the media is confusing the HealthKit dev kit with the Health app. Helps with the story I guess.

CmonDev 12y ago

In the world of cyber-squatting and start-up-coming-soon pages, the one that gets more famous first wins.

blueskin_ 12y ago

And now just wait for these guys to be patent trolled into oblivion :(

andyhmltn 12y ago

(Off topic) Jesus christ. The hijacked they scroll event and replace it with buttons

grahamel 12y ago
Oh my, that's awful. Especially with two different down arrows. On the about us page there isn't any buttons at all, so you can't read all the text.
- spacemanmatt 12y ago
  "Why yes, disabling the default UI controls seems like a brilliant plan."
spacemanmatt 12y ago
I have scrolled through a lot of comments to find the first one seizing on that particular bit of website implementation fuckery. I'm glad it's not just me fuming a bit about that! I am...disappoint.
juhq 12y ago
This really is horrible. I don't even care anymore about what they wrote, breaking default ui behaviour is bad bad bad.
talles 12y ago
I thought it was bugged here in my Firefox, so it seems it is not. What a horrible decision.

dctoedt 12y ago

Something like this happened with the Macintosh trademark as well -- Apple had to buy the right to the name from McIntosh Laboratory, which made high-end audio gear. [1] [1] http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/mac/30-years-mac-how-macintosh-got-its-name-24578/ http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/mac/30-years-mac-how-macintos...

vincentbarr 12y ago

Given the usability of said company's website, Apple would be doing web users a favor acquiring that domain.

tomdotom 12y ago

Apple will have certainly Googled your domain. Without been specific to Apple, it's a common practice of large multinational companies to perform international searches for registered and unregistered trademarks as well as any common usage of the marks they are interested in using. If any potential registrations, or strong claims on the mark, are found in the same field of business a specialist will probably be contracted to perform a more in depth investigation. I would be surprised if Apple had not taken the time to assess your claims on the HealthKit mark. I can only guess that they did and decided that there was either: a) no conflict between your businesses and hence use of the mark - in which case you should be happy, yet careful not infringe on Apple's usage (keep your eye out for a trademark registration very soon). b) they don't think you have any strong rights on the mark and chose to use it. It may be fun to ask around the office and see if anybody remembers been contacted with out of the ordinary questions regarding the length of your company's operations and asking questions about the HealthKit domain/name in general.

mcmillion 12y ago

I have to click a button to scroll the text on your site.

jfranche 12y ago

How did the whole Apple Records v Apple thing work out...

mrfancypants 12y ago

They never registered the business name. The folks in charge at the (non-Apple) Healthkit should learn how to do business before having a whinge. Move along, nothing to see here.

mrfancypants 12y ago
downvote without contributing to discussion? smooth.

deleted 12y ago

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