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Comment by heavyset_go | Hacker News Reader

I have an tangential question about open source projects and names. "Boston Dynamics" is a trademark of Boston Dynamics Inc. Can using "Dynamic" like this project does cause legal problems, considering the name can be an allusion to the trademark?

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I doubt it. Canadian chain restaurant 'Boston Pizza' can't prevent you using the word 'pizza', though it's directly concerned with their business.

General Dynamics predates Boston Dynamics by decades.

('General Dynamics' is a wonderful company name. Imagine if you'd heard it for the first time today. Cool name.)

And I have a set of Boston Acoustics speakers sitting on my desk here that are almost certainly older than the Boston Dynamics trademark.

Hmmm, just looked it up: "Boston Dynamics is an American engineering and robotics design company founded in 1992" Boston Acoustics was founded in 1979. Th A40s on my desk came out in 1986, bu6t I'm not sure how old this specific pair are, I bought them 2nd hand. I have a pair of their bigger brothers, the A60s downstairs that I bought new in 1988...

It's very 1950s.

* General Dynamics

* General Atomic

* General Houses (briefly, late 1940s)

following, of course

* General Motors

* General Electric

I was about 25 when I tried to trademark General Magic and was pissed to find out I was not the first. General Products was also taken; guess there are a lot of Larry Niven fans out there.

General Robotics also taken. Defense contractor.

In this case, "Dynamic" is likely referring to the fact that the robot is dynamic, not the company Boston Dynamics. In fact, Dynamics is literally just the study of forces and their effect on motion, so I feel like it would be a stretch for them to try and own a term used in every undergraduate mechanics class [1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamics_%28mechanics%29

I figured that, but if their marketing references Boston Dynamics, like the headline of the submission did before dang changed it, I can see an argument that says that a layman might assume this project and Boston Dynamics are related in some way.

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