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Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

Do AMD, Intel, Nvidia, HP, Lenovo, Ford, Honda, and so on send a cease and desist letter to every publication ...

I suppose they don't and I'm not disagreeing with you on that.

The IMAX situation may be different in that their trademark is very catchy sounding (2 syllables "eye"-"macks") and is getting pulled (by innocent human tendencies) into a lot of conversations unrelated to IMAX(tm) theaters. When people use words like "AMD" and "Honda", it doesn't seem to erode their trademark. But for some reason with "IMAX", and "google", and "kleenex", it does. In other words, most people haven't genericized "Honda" to the point of saying "I'm going to Honda my but to the grocery store."

Are the cultural references to "IMAX" trending towards trademark desctruction such as "kleenex" and "escalator"[1] or are the usages actually trademark preserving such as "AMD" and "Honda"?

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escalator#Loss_of_trademark_ri...

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I think that's a bit of a stretch. When I hear "Honda", I think of cars. When I hear "Ford", I also think of cars. When I hear "IMAX", I think of theaters. When I hear "SteamVR", I think of computer games and virtual reality. If anything, IMAX has even less footing than the other companies I mentioned.

Now, that's just me, but I can imagine it being similar for most people.

I think you're missing the point.

When most people think of fascial tissue, they think of Kleenex. They call any brand of fascial tissue Kleenex.

IMAX doesn't want people calling any large format theater IMAX. So they over-reach anytime someone mentions the word I assume.

Not justifying the actions, just trying to clear things up. Personally, I think it's ridiculous.

But who is calling just any theater "IMAX"? If I say to my wife, "hey let's go to the IMAX", she's going to ask me why we would pay that much when we can just go to the theater instead. If there's any dilution of the IMAX brand going on, it's by IMAX themselves by constantly lowering their standards.

Something else you have to consider is intent. It doesn't seem that Ars intended to dilute IMAX's brand by publishing a quote, and it doesn't seem to be the intent of the person quoted either. It was simply a frame of reference.

> IMAX doesn't want people calling any large format theater IMAX

Here's the thing: Nobody did that in the Ars article. A piece of VR tech was casually compared to the IMAX experience by someone being interviewed by Ars.

>But who is calling just any theater "IMAX"?

I'm not saying any theater but I have noticed that some visitors to Epcot refer to the Canada and China 360-degree movies as "IMAX". The actual designation is "CircleVision 360". But people don't remember that 7-syllable trademark. The first word that comes to the tip of their tongue is "IMAX" because that word has become a placeholder for "any immersive large screen experience".

>Something else you have to consider is intent.

Yes, but society's casual use of "Escalator" to "escalator" and "Kleenex" to "kleenex" didn't have any kind of mastermind conspiracy to dilute the trademark. It just happened. I'm guessing most trademarks erode without malicious intent.

Could Otis Escalator and Kleenex lawyers have done anything to stop the trademark erosion?

I still think IMAX is barking up the wrong tree. If anything they should have sent the letter to the person who made the comparison, not Ars who simply quoted the person. Though that would be wrong as well, it would be slightly less wrong than attacking a news site for reporting the news.

Kleenex could have rebranded as Snot Rag. "Hand me a Snot Rag?, I need to clean my glasses."

The difference is that Kleenex facial tissues and Otis Escalators (moving staircases?) are unique terms that have no other well known counterparts or alternative generic terms. It is unlikely that IMAX is going to replace the generic term movie theater, and even less likely that the general public is going to distinguish between movie theater and large screen format movie theater -- it's just a bigger screen for what is otherwise the same.

Do people make a distinction between THX and Dolby Digital sound systems in theaters and say let's go see something at the THX or Dolby Digital? That doesn't happen because those technologies only contribute to the experience, they don't define it as something unique.

> IMAX doesn't want people calling any large format theater IMAX.

Of course they don't. But that doesn't give them legal ground to send out C&Ds when people do. They're allowed to protect their trademark in specific, legally defined situations. This isn't one of them, no matter how much IMAX wishes it were so.

> > IMAX doesn't want people calling any large format theater IMAX.

Also, there is no evidence that this is what happened here! The developer quoted by Ars might/might not have literally been referring to IMAX(tm). Only he knows for sure. This is not what the lawyer was whining about either - they were claiming that Ars should have sought permission from IMAX before using the trademarked term in the article. Which is bullshit.

I don't understand how people can condone that - it's only a stones-throw away from a scenario where Google/Apple sues you for using their trademark without permission in your negative comment about one of their products.

When most people think of fascial tissue, they're probably recalling some medical terminology. People thinking of facial tissue may or may not think of Kleenex.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascia

According to that wikipedia article, Otis lost the 'escalator' trademark because of the way they themselves had generically used the term, not just because of the way others used it. Also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark#Avoiding_gen... gives several suggestions on avoiding genercization that don't involve legal threats.

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