this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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187
Meta, Microsoft, hundreds more own trademarks to new Twitter name (www.reuters.com)
submitted 1 year ago by RandAlThor@lemmy.ca to c/technology
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[–] bermuda 94 points 1 year ago (3 children)

important for anybody following this topic to also know that "hundreds of trademarks" can sometimes just mean that there's a few trademarks in each class. Trademarks in the US are divided into classes, so that two companies that do different things can still be named the same or similar.

The article still has a point, in that similar software companies like Meta and Microsoft have trademarks for "X," but if your PVC pipe company is called X, you might not have a good case against Twitter because who is getting confused between PVC pipes and social media?

[–] CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 80 points 1 year ago

"Your honor, let the record state that there is a common saying to the effect that "the internet is a series of tubes". Now, PVC pipes are also a variety of tube. Therefore..."

[–] elooto@lemmy.ml 47 points 1 year ago (4 children)

The Olympics did send a cease and desist to Olympic Provisions (a salami maker in Portland, Oregon). So they had to change their name to Olympia Provisions. Perhaps the Olympics felt threatened since people often confuse ‘finocchiona salami’ with ‘finishing a giant slalom’.

[–] bermuda 20 points 1 year ago

Yeah I should have also mentioned that that doesn't prevent companies from trying that kind of bullshit.

[–] emuspawn@fernchat.esotericmonkey.com 13 points 1 year ago

Which is somewhat BS, since we have a perfectly good Olympic Peninsula here in Washington State that it was certainly named after.

[–] UnhappyCamper@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

My vet clinic I work at was contacted by Red Cross some years ago damanding that we change our logo becuase it had a red plus sign in it. It was the most ridiculous thing. How did they even find out about us? we are no big time clinic, only people in our city are going to know who we are. We had that logo for a long, long time. It was just bizarre.

[–] irasponsible 8 points 1 year ago

I don't think Red Cross is going off trademark law; using the Red Cross for anything but the Red Cross (same for the Red Crescent and Red Crystal) is a violation of international law (i.e. the Geneva Convention)

[–] Nyla_Smokeyface 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Isn't that a common symbol for all medical related things?

[–] chaogomu@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago

You would think that, but no. It's specifically the Red Cross organization. Which is an international organization.

It can also be used by militaries and such for Geneva Convention complaint medical use, such as search and rescue operations or medical centers and such.

That's it. Those are the only legally allowed uses. And even Geneva Convention complaint medical use is often run by the international organization.

[–] TheHalc@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 year ago

Nope. There's a reason they go after video games that use the red cross symbol for health packs, that dilutes the meaning of what the red cross stands for.

[–] UnhappyCamper@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That's what we had thought too. Also the fact that it was a really generic looking red plus sign. How can someone trademark a symbol used by everyone? I guess if it wasn't red, it would have been fine. There was a lot of scoffing going on in clinic.

[–] geissi@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago

Doesn't necessarily mean the Olympics were in their right.
More likely that the salami maker wanted to avoid / could not afford a legal battle.

[–] Girtablulu@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago

Apple tries to trademark their apple logo, not the bitten one a full apple in my country....

[–] Nyla_Smokeyface 36 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Apple stopped giving their new products the"i" prefix because they weren't able to trademark it because "you can't trademark a letter."

I doubt that they'll allow Elon Musk to trademark the letter "x"

[–] SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 year ago (3 children)

You can’t trademark a letter and you can’t copyright a font - I believe the courts have ruled so due to first amendment concerns.

I think you can, however, trademark a logo that consists of a letter. I’m thinking specifically of the McDonald’s M logo. I might be wrong, but I have seen Coming to America multiple times.

[–] hamiltonicity 11 points 1 year ago

The problem here will be that Elon's new X logo is really just an existing Unicode character: 𝕏. It's appeared in maths papers for decades. This isn't like the golden arches - there's nothing novel there to trademark.

[–] Ringmasterincestuous@aussie.zone 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Those are all the credentials we need Doctor 👍

[–] upstream 2 points 1 year ago

That might be copyright though? The McD M.

[–] platysalty@kbin.social 35 points 1 year ago

So is it okay for me to call my mastodon server twitter now?

[–] HappyMeatbag 14 points 1 year ago

A shitshow of epic proportions.

[–] BrooklynMan@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

oh, look, musk made yet another stupid, impulsive decision that could have disastrous, short- and long-term consequences for ~~twitter~~ er... "x"

[–] sloonark@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago

Pretty sure Sesame Street's use of the letter X pre-dates Musk's claim to it as well.