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Comment by jeremyarussell | Hacker News Reader

You get a plus for that one. I always like when people provide evidence to back stuff up.

To me though, how can someone trademark or copyright a single established word in any language, it just seems ridiculous really.

PS: I hope Bethesda takes him up on the offer.

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I think Microsoft owns the trademark for the word "Windows".

http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/en/us/IntellectualPrope...

For a long time they didn't own the trademark for Excel, having to call it "Microsoft Excel" in all official communication.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Excel#Excel_2.0

Heh, trademarking a single established word is not even where it stops. T-Mobile owns the color magenta! [1]. So don't just stop at words. Let's do letters, colors, etc. And of course as soon as you trademark a color, it implies that you've trademarked all the individual colors that make it up. Thus a trademark on the color white (#FFFFFF (c) (tm) Igor Partola, all rights reserved) would give you all other colors.

[1] http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/color-the-next-limited-re...

EDIT: Fixed silly color theory mistake.

EDIT2: s/copyright/trademark/g

Black is the absence of colour. White is composed of all other colours.

Only in additive color mixing. In subtractive mixing, it's the opposite.

Oh FFS, did you even spend a second figuring out what a trademark on a color actually means?

I honestly don't know what you mean. I have almost no interest in copyright law as it is. All I know is that I believe that if I make a magenta cell phone and start selling it, T-Mobile might get upset. Please explain what you mean.

It's a trademark, not a copyright. Trademarks are intended to protect consumers, not companies. Legally, it's only infringement if consumers might be confused. So I can say the word Facebook here, and as long as it's obvious that I'm not claiming to be Facebook, or diluting the brand, it's OK.

Well, at least you're honest in your ignorance.

Trademarks and copyrights are two totally different things. See here: http://www.lawmart.com/searches/difference.htm

tl;dr: Trademarks are more to do with logos and branding, their intent being to allow a company to distinguish themselves in a market with a certain identity. Violations of Trademarks are usually linked to consumers being mislead into believing a product is from one company when it is in fact from another.

T-Mobile does not own a copyright for Magenta. They don't own Magenta. If I want to make Magenta chairs they have no say. They would never receive a Trademark on black, however.

If you start making magenta phones, it's reasonable to assume that the average consumer would confuse them with the already popular magenta phones being promoted by T-Mobile, and this might damage their brand, given that your phones might not work to the same standard.

It's generally not good to form an opinion of topics before you actually obtain a relevant amount of education. It can lead you to making yourself look really stupid.

You would probably fair better doing some research for yourself.

Here is wikipedia's entry on the first U.S. lawsuit that established that color could be trademarked: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualitex_Co._v._Jacobson_Produc....

It’s important to point out the colour trademarks are applicable only within their chosen markets. Orange in the UK (mobile phone network) have a shade of orange that they claim as a trademark. EasyGroup (a company in a rather diverse set of industries) use a very similar shade of orange, but that wasn’t a problem until they tried to enter the mobile market as a virtual network:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EasyGroup#EasyMobile.2FShimmerB...

How do you feel about "Apple"?

The computer company or the record label?

Well that's the point, right? If I make a computer called "Apple", that's confusing for people buying computers. If I release records under "Apple", that's confusing for people buying records (although you could make the case that people don't care). Otherwise, I'm free to use it.

Trademarks don't mean "word monopoly".

Depends on if it's a green one or a red one. (haha jk)

But really, the same way I feel about Scrolls. Even considering the larger company size, and the higher revenue, and the longer life of the company. The only difference being Bethesda is going the extra mile and trying to monopolize a single word that is included within a group of words. The Elder Scrolls:(Insert subtitle here), while Apple is and always has been Apple. If I make a game or company called, Green Apple or Apple Smasher and Apple tries to sue me, I'm going to be using the same argument.

Yeah, I'm not gonna try to defend that a game called "Scrolls" is going to confuse anyone, that's total BS. Just saying that the idea of a trademark applying to an English word isn't, like, completely out of the question.

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