Comments on: Futuremark attempts to pwn trademark law

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 06:24:31 +0000

You can trademark a common word: Apple, Windows, etc. You can’t CONTROL the word and you DON’T OWN THE WORD. You only own use in commerce to sell a product.

Apple (computer) can’t stop the grocery story from selling apples (the fruit), but could stop an “AppL” knock-off computer manufacturer.

Same here. They can TM “pwnd” all they want, but they can’t do anything about people yelling that they pwnd each other. All they can do is stop other companies from selling “Pwnd Brand ___” where “___” is whatever kind of product.

By: John Eddy

John Eddy — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:59:13 +0000

Well, it’d make more sense to try to TM an emergent word rather than one that is in common usage, since it’d be hard to claim ownership of a common word, right?

By: Devin Coldewey

Devin Coldewey — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:41:34 +0000

Thanks for keeping me honest, John, I’ve corrected that. Why did I think it was just Marvel?
And of course, the wordsmithing argument is a complicated one, but in this case I think it’s more weird because “pwn” is an emergent word, not a focus-group-tested word made for a specific product. It’d be like Band-Aid trying to trademark “ow.”

By: Johnal

Johnal — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:51:47 +0000

…which will probably be obsolete soon as everyone moves to voice chat.

You’d be surprised by how many people actually say “pwned” out loud — it is not limited to typed language.

By: John Eddy

John Eddy — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:51:05 +0000

Just a minor quibble: Marvel *and* DC co-own the “super hero” TM. IANAL, but I’m pretty sure that the space is important. As for case sensitivity, that I don’t know.

As for the argument that it’s not even a real word, well…

Integra?
Altima?
Camry?

Pretty sure none of them are real words, but I’ll bet they’re all trademarked.

Heck, one could argue that because it isn’t a real word is the reason why you *should* trademark it.