• @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    1681 year ago

    As amusing as it is to see Elon fail, letters like “X” shoud not be trademarkable. Just one indicator that we’re truly reaching capitalist extremism levels of insanity.

    • sab
      link
      fedilink
      481 year ago

      Also, how the hell could Microsoft get a patent for X in 2003 when X has been around since 1984, and is pretty much a direct competitor? This makes no sense at all.

        • sab
          link
          fedilink
          241 year ago

          Makes sense I guess. Somehow also makes the trademark even more absurd.

          Reminds me a little of Apple v. Apple Records, and how Apple promised never too use their brand to enter into the music industry (like they later did with iTunes anyway).

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            34
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            In 1991, Apple Computer made an agreement to pay Apple Records $26 million in exchange for letting Apple Computer use the “Apple” trademark for music. But that was long before iTunes, they wanted the Apple trademark for their computer chimes. Apple Records agreed to let Apple Computer use the Apple trademark for music as long as it did not “package, sell or distribute physical music materials.”

            Much later, iTunes was developed and Apple Records sued Apple Computer. Eventually a judge sided with Apple Computer, pointing out that iTunes did not package, sell or distribute physical music materials. Thus, Apple Records couldn’t get another bite of that Apple…

      • fiat_lux
        link
        fedilink
        271 year ago

        The law is a weapon of the rich. You don’t have to be right, you just have to be able to afford out-lawyering your competition. Patents are especially revolting.

        • sab
          link
          fedilink
          41 year ago

          Of course, my question was rhetorical. I guess it didn’t come out so clearly considering it’s also, at least in theory, a damned good question.

          • fiat_lux
            link
            fedilink
            41 year ago

            It was probably clear enough, you just caught me half-asleep and unmedicated. I really dislike patents.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        171 year ago

        How is Xorg a “direct competitor” to Microsoft? Especially Microsoft’s trademark to X in the gaming market where they own the Xbox and Xorg doesn’t participate at all?

        Trademarks protect consumers by preventing fraud and misleading naming. It makes perfect sense that Microsoft owns X in the given market space due to the enormous prevalence of Xbox. Their first console was literally X-shaped and it would be bad for consumers for anyone to be able to make the “X-station” or “X-cube” or some such.

        • sab
          link
          fedilink
          3
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          One could not imagine Linux without X11 in 2003. And in 2003, the situation between Microsoft and Linux was rather tense.

          That said, I managed to somehow forget about Xbox. I agree it makes sense that Sony couldn’t launch an “X console” with a gigantic X on the side.

          So yes, I want thinking it through. I do however think that using this trademark against X.xom would be ill conceived, no matter how much I hate Musk. If they start moving into gaming it might be different though, so fair enough.

          Thanks for making me think it through more! :)

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      19
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Trademarks only cover very significant uses. Microsoft can (and apparently did) trademark X in connection to the Xbox, so competitors can’t make a game console called an XStation or PlayStation X, but people not making video game consoles aren’t affected.

      [Edit: Man, Lemmy is weird. I deleted this comment right after posting it because I thought it was redundant. I only undeleted it because I saw it was the top-rated comment in its sub-thread.]

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        21 year ago

        You can also protect colors. Like there is a defined “target red” and “home depot orange” (probably a twitter blue that I guess will be up for grabs soon). You could use that orange to open, say, a day-care, hair salon, or auto-shop, but not a hardware store. Basically if you can show it would cause consumer confusion you can protect it.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      -11 year ago

      Trademarks are a government-enforced (i.e. publicly-mandated) monopoly, which is fundamentally antithetical to capitalism.

      Capitalism: “an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit.”

      For sure, there are many shades of grey to be had here, and the world has 0 purely capitalist societies (in fact, such a society is inherently impossible). But every time the public controls trade and industry, e.g. when enforcing trademark law, that isn’t capitalism.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        51 year ago

        Private property laws are a government-enforced (i.e. publicly-mandated) style of ownership.

        Fure sure, there are many shades of grey to be had here, but Elon Musk owning Twitter is the ultimate form of communism.

  • fearout
    link
    fedilink
    261 year ago

    I’m glad we’re currently on a good news streak. Those climate change articles were weighing on me.

  • PatFusty
    link
    fedilink
    251 year ago

    How does both meta and microsoft own the rights to “X”

    • @[email protected]B
      link
      fedilink
      231 year ago

      From what I understand, MS owns it in regards gaming, and Meta owns it in regards to social media.

    • monsterpiece42
      link
      fedilink
      61 year ago

      Probably in different industries. I saw the MS patent is for game related stuff. I would assume metas is for social media stuff, or some other field they’re involved in.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        121 year ago

        Trademark, not patent. I wouldn’t normally correct you but there seems to be a whole lot of misunderstanding in this thread about the categories of intellectual property.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    231 year ago

    I thought it was nigh impossible to trademark a letter?

    I saw a tweet from the founder of xe.com who literally used the same logo in the 90s and he discussed the challenges in globally trademarking a single letter.

    Both aspects were giant cans of worms for El Musky.

  • SeaJ
    link
    fedilink
    171 year ago

    The design is also a unicode character.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      1
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Sort of. It’s how some fonts render that character. I’ve noticed it tends to look like the Twitter logo with Android’s default font, but it’s noticeably different in Firefox on Windows.

  • LegendOfZelda
    link
    fedilink
    141 year ago

    I want Musk to lose but I hate the idea of a single letter being copyright.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      231 year ago

      Trademark, not copyright. It means that you can’t make something and call it “X” if there’s any chance that your “X” and their “X” might get mixed up. Google ran into this same problem when they created “Alphabet” - it was already a trademark of some German car manufacturer (probably Audi or BMW), but the court ruled that “Alphabet the car company” and “Alphabet the online services company” are far enough apart that the average user probably won’t confuse one for the other (although the Dove soap and Dove chocolate makes me doubt it). Twitter and Microsoft both offer online services. It might be enough of an overlap to constitute a trademark violation.

    • nefarious
      link
      fedilink
      81 year ago

      Copyright and trademarks are different things. In this case it looks like it applies mainly to the Xbox “X” logo like is seen on this (hilarious) page of the filing and is only for things related to messaging and gaming, so it’s not as broad as it sounds. Based on a cursory look at Google results from before July 1st, I can’t find any examples of Microsoft actually suing anyone for using the letter X, either.