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This just makes IMAX's case that consumer confusion is possible.
by waterlesscloud 11y ago
This just makes IMAX's case that consumer confusion is possible.
- moron4hire 11y agoNo, it does not create "consumer confusion". Consumer confusion means consumers might be lead to think Product A, with a far to similar a name to Product B, literally is Product B. It's not at all about relative value comparison like "as good as" or "better than". You can put competitor products' names on your package, in your advertising, to make comparisons. Facebook could make ads selling themselves as "Facebook has 200% more users than G+", and Google cannot make a trademark infringement complaint, because it cannot possibly be interpreted by a "reasonable" consumer to say "Facebook is provided by Google". There is no way to interpret what was said to say "SteamVR is the same thing as IMAX, from the same people, etc."
- waterlesscloud 11y agoIf someone (such as OP) believes that SteamVR can be a competitive experience with IMAX, then they can believe it can be certified or licensed by IMAX. Thus consumer confusion is possible here. And there's a difference in saying "Twice the resolution of IMAX!" (for example) and saying "It's like having an IMAX theater in your house." Those aren't the same kinds of statements.
- MCRed 11y agoI'm quite depressed to see you being downvoted for making cogent points. It's a shame HN has become slashdot.
- waterlesscloud 11y agoI've obviously given up caring about downvotes here or I wouldn't have said anything at all on this story. I don't understand why the mods think discouraging people from expressing unpopular opinions is desirable. It puzzles me to the extent that I wonder if I misunderstand the purpose of having comments at all. But it's how it is.
- nate_meurer 11y agoThe problem isn't that your opinion is unpopular. The problem is that you're misrepresenting your opinion in terms of a legal concept. The term "confusion" has specific meaning in trademark law, which you seem to resist acknowledging. Even if you have a point, you're going to frustrate others by being thick-headed. See dragonwriter's comment for a good concise clarification.
- waterlesscloud 11y agoHonestly, we're all just talking past each other. I knew it would be hopeless to get the idea across in this environment of jump all over the stupid thing of the day, but I wanted to try anyway. As far as the legal concept goes, it should be clear that I'm just interpreting what IMAX's general counsel seems to believe. Whether you agree with her or not, I wouldn't say she's uninformed on the topic.
- nate_meurer 11y agoUninformed or not, IMAX' action was stupid and self-destructive and they know it: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/06/imax-apologizes-to-ars-for-its-trademark-retraction-demand/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/06/imax-apologizes-t...
- waterlesscloud 11y agoEh. It just happened to be a stupid story of the day. The other 1000 people they sent letters to either complied or did nothing.
- zzleeper 11y agoHas it? The quoted article had an interview with a developer where the developer mentioned IMAX. Not the article, but a guy with quotes around it. How does that lead to any consumer confusion at all?
- shiggerino 11y agoAt least HN doesn't seem to be perpetuating the Reddit hypocrisy about voting for quality and not popularity, but the problem remains, voting popular opinions up and unpopular ones down only serves to turn the place into an echo chamber. Though mostly it's annoying to have to select the text to be able to read it as it gets lighter and lighter.
- Nadya 11y agoStylish browser addon -> Add CSS for HN for "font { color: #333 !important; }" Now all comments are the same color, regardless of votes. I dislike the fading mechanism for the reasons I describe here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9746702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9746702
- shiggerino 11y agoGood idea. But what I should do is write a script that in addition to that puts and indicator so I know which posts the HN readership has decided my feeble little mind needs to be spared from lest I too start having unpopular opinions. Which is too late by now anyway, since I have tons of them.
- hyperpape 11y agoYou're missing the point, which is that you can't just make up an opinion about whether something causes consumer confusion. It's a legal term that gets interpreted in a particular way. I try not to downvote people for mere opinions that differ from mine, but I will downvote people whose posts are just uninformed or simply wrong. (I didn't downvote here, because I'm not super familiar with how the courts interpret consumer confusion, but I suspect that the parent is just wrong about the term, and it's not just a matter of opinion).
- dpark 11y agoNeither of your examples lead to consumer confusion. No one is confusing a head-mounted VR display with a 35 foot movie screen. Believing that a VR solution could be certified/licensed by IMAX is not consumer confusion, that's accurate belief. IMAX could certify a VR solution as "The IMAX Experience" if they wanted to. But hell, Harley-Davidson could certify a VR solution as "The Open Road Experience" [1], too. Still no one is going to think a headset is a motorcycle. [1] I made this up. I'm pretty sure Harley-Davidson does not use this as a motto/slogan/trademark/whatever.
- waterlesscloud 11y agoIMAX isn't a 35 foot movie screen. The value of the IMAX trademark is that it's a set of standards for image projection, which is how it's being used in the quote. As if the product, which is concerned with image projection, is up to those standards. Harley-Davidson, to my knowledge, isn't involved in image projection standards. Say a lamp which isn't UL certified had a quote "It's like having a UL certified lamp in your house!" Would that seem ok? Or maybe questionable?
- moron4hire 11y agoYou're still just making shit up that doesn't exist in the real world. The world doesn't conform to your fantasy notions, dude!
- dpark 11y ago> The value of the IMAX trademark is that it's a set of standards for image projection, which is how it's being used in the quote What article did you read? The quote most certainly did not refer to IMAX as a "set of standards for image projection". Here's the quote again: > "The jump up in tech between playing a normal video game and playing with Kinect was X. The jump between a regular game and playing a room scale VR experience is X times 100. It’s like saying, 'I have an IMAX theater in my house.' It’s so much better that we can get away with a cumbersome setup." There's nothing here about standards for image projection. The quote doesn't even compare the visual quality of SteamVR to IMAX. It says the jump in experience from a regular game to "room scale VR" is like the jump of putting an IMAX theater in your house. The quote is specifically about the huge improvement in the experience. You can tell because he literally referred to the "experience". And none of this matters, because even if he had actually been saying that SteamVR looks like an IMAX screen, that would still not create consumer confusion. Comparing products' quality is a reasonable thing and we do it all the time without creating confusion. Someone reviewing a Samsung LCD could say that it looks as good as their Panasonic plasma, and this is a reasonable and probably useful comparison to make. It wouldn't confuse any reasonable person into believing that Panasonic was manufacturing, certifying, or licensing Samsung displays (or vice versa). > Say a lamp which isn't UL certified had a quote "It's like having a UL certified lamp in your house!" Would that seem ok? Or maybe questionable? It seems like a stupid thing to say because the statement doesn't make a lot of sense. Saying "It's like having a UL certified lamp in your house!" is kind of like saying "It's like having a car that won't kill you in a crash!" It reads like sarcasm. No one would make this comparison in a serious way. But no, I don't think it creates any kind of consumer confusion.
- SEMW 11y ago> If someone (such as OP) believes that SteamVR can be a competitive experience with IMAX, then they can believe it can be certified or licensed by IMAX. Thus consumer confusion is possible here. The test isn't whether someone can believe it, in the sense that it isn't physically impossible that at least one person could believe it. Thankfully. It's, according to the article, whether there's a likelyhood of confusion. I.e. whether an average, reasonably prudent consumer would be likely to be confused.
- zck 11y ago>If someone (such as OP) believes that SteamVR can be a competitive experience with IMAX, then they can believe it can be certified or licensed by IMAX. This is a different issue -- of course IMAX /could/ license it; it's possible. The issue is whether people believe IMAX /has/ licensed it. This may be your point, but it's not clear to me. If I say "this car is as good as a BMW", do you think I'm saying that the car is a BMW? If I say "the guitar my uncle made plays as smoothly as a Les Paul", do you think I'm saying I have Les Paul's signature on the headstock? I think the comparisons and analogies are understood as such; I doubt the average consumer thinks the SteamVR has anything to do with IMAX.
- moron4hire 11y ago"Like" is not the same as "is". For a consumer to be confused, it would be no fault of the speaker, because the speaker expressed themselves correctly. Your argument is that users could misinterpret what is said, willfully ignore the meaning of words. By that standard, I could say "my product has nothing to do with IMAX" and someone could choose to ignore it and say "he said IMAX! It must be IMAX." No court is going to apply such a standard, because it is ludicrous.
- dragonwriter 11y ago> If someone (such as OP) believes that SteamVR can be a competitive experience with IMAX, then they can believe it can be certified or licensed by IMAX. Thus consumer confusion is possible here. I think more relevant is that if it is a competing experience, then the comparison -- especially in the context of promoting SteamVR by someone with a vested interest (including someone intending to sell software for the SteamVR platform) -- raises issues of trademark dilution and/or misappropriation even in the absence of the specific kind of consumer confusion that would be necessary for trademark infringement.
- skelsey 11y agoIt's ironic that in an article documenting attempted censorship, I have to squint to read this legitimate comment because people think that disagreeing with someone gives them the right to censor them.
- waterlesscloud 11y agoOne interesting recent change is that you won't see your own downvoted comments as greyed out. You used to, but I think someone said it was offputting (which it kinda is) and dang & company changed it.
- moron4hire 11y agoExcept it relies on a false fact, that this has anything to do with the legal concept of "consumer confusion". It's not just an opinion, it's actively promoting falsehoods.
- Nadya 11y agoI take personal issue with the fading of downvoted comments. 1) The mechanic silences an opinion by making it harder to read/requiring highlighting to read 2) Swaying public opinion of a comment without even reading it. "Oh, it's already almost faded out entirely. It's probably a terrible post that I should just downvote without actually reading." (E: I understand HN requires you to "spend" a karma to downvote something. This doesn't prevent people from using their karma in this manner when they have 1,000's) 3) Allows self-validation of "others agree with me, because this comment has been downvoted and I disagree with this comment", which is fallacious reasoning. Popular/majority opinion can be wrong and patting yourself on the back for having other people agree with you can be detrimental. Self-validation without critically thinking about your opponents arguments is an injustice to them. I have a rule in Stylish to set "font" to #333 so that all comments appear the same for me. Unless someone mentions "why is this downvoted", I'm completely unaware of any comments being downvoted. I find this leads to a better experience on HN. Note: For #3 I use "you/yourself" in a "third party not necessarily you 'you'" way.
- macspoofing 11y agoBe serious.