The Itsy-Bitsy, Teenie-Weenie, Very Litigious Bikini

Did you counter-demand that they stop distributing their game? Seems like it would have only been fair.

Wait...Empire was published in 1987. Age of Empires was published in 1997. Are you talking about Microsoft?

Could you expand on this registered copyright thing? Which country? I'm aware of registered trademarks, but I've never heard of registered copyright - only the kind that automatically exists as soon as you create a work.

Cool! Anywhere I could look for details about your game?

Edit: Never mind, I took a look at your username and googled it with "empire". (google even did an auto complete to it!) for other's, here it is, looks great! http://www.classicempire.com/

Empire is an amazing game! I grew up playing it with my dad. So many good memories, and I think it stands the test of time; I still play sometimes. Never thought I'd run into its author on HN!

Totally off-topic now, but what was the lineage of the trademark for that that allowed New World to publish the seemingly unrelated tactical game Empire II? I impulse-bought that when I found it in a bargain bin and while it was fun enough for the small amount I paid, it was nothing at all what I was expecting from the name...

Wow! We had empire for our Amiga 500 when I was like... 6. It always impressed / intimidated me. Bravo!

The bikini style is probably unique enough that it could be considered "trade dress", which is protected by IP law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_dress

The article mentions trade dress being an aspect of their lawsuit against Neiman Marcus and some other companies.

There's a fine line between protecting original works and creating barriers to competition through litigation. Not sure just using a different material and stitching method (that has been widely used for ages) qualifies for protection. It's too general. Now if someone is trying to pass off as the same brand name that is something entirely different but that's trademark not copyright.

Not to diminish the sentiment (I agree, she should get a lot more) but the amount she's receiving now might exceed anything she's ever earned before in Brazil walking the beaches, so it's not a sad story yet, I think.

From worldcrunch: "According to the Brazilian daily Estadao, a worker on the bottom end of Brazil’s pay scale earns roughly $77.40 per month, meaning it would take him or her three years and three months to earn what an average person at the top end of the spectrum makes in just one month: $3,019."

It's a Brazilian idiom, somewhat equivalent to saying "royally" or "spectacularly". Green and yellow are indeed a reference to the Brazilian flag. The idea being that someone wearing these colors would probably be some official person in a very visible position, like a player of the national football team.

Brazilians have terms that make no sense at all even in our own language. Things like greeting someone with “beleza?”(Beauty?) and the other end replying with “Jóia” (jewel). Other things include “pretending to be armless John” and “pull your small horse out of the rain”.

Most of them have some obscure meaning that is unknown to most people nowadays.

Couldn't find any googling in Portuguese, but that is a reference to being screwed by the government seems a good guess

I remember this. You have the link change names every time you refresh the page. I couldn't believe that app store was something they wanted to copyright. It's literally short for Application Store. I always thought if you had someone sell your product on dedicated hardware it might work, but then that's a ton of overhead. :/

The term “App Store” wasn’t a thing until Marc Benioff creates it, abandoning the mark to Apple in 2008 when he and Steve Jobs discusses it (Benioff gave App Store to Apple and Salesforce used the more enterprise-sounding AppExchange.) The only reason that phrase became “generic” is because Apple made it into a household name. It wasn’t like people were using App Store in conversation until Apple’s App Store became a thing. Claiming it’s generic is a weak argument because that term as a description of a store used to sell computer programs didn’t happen until Benioff and Apple. You didn’t get “bullied”: you were using a phrase that had a valid trademark issued, knowing good and well that it was an Apple trademark. And, at the time of the trademark filing, it was anything but generic. It wasn’t like the term “Coffee Shop” which has been in common use for a very long time. App Store has a very specific meaning: it referred to Apple’s App Store, that others have attempted to use it doesn’t make it less novel. It was novel at the time of filing. It would be like trying to challenge the copyright on Kleenex or Chlorox: names that are in very common use, but common use arguments don’t work retroactively, which is what you seemed to have been arguing: “App Store is in common use so I should be able to use it.” It came into common use after Apple trademarked it, that doesn’t weaken the original filing. You could have used Application Shop, App Shop, App Emporium — a myriad of options. Instead, you specifically wanted Apple’s mark because Apple had done the work to legitimize the term so you wouldn’t have had to. You weren’t bullied: the trademark is valid and you infringed it. That it’s being challenged now is of no consequence— the mark is still, at present, valid.

Oh for sure, people will keep comparing themselves to others. 9M is still not "fuck you" money, it'll buy you a Lamborghini but not a classic car collection and the means to store, maintain and secure it. For example.

Right.

Appropriates a handmade native Brazilian bikini, has it made in China and makes $9MM.

Sues others for making similar designs.

Exactly, both dances taken from others and claimed as original by the litigants.

And I've seen the Carlton in a couple of games much before Fornite was a thing.