Does Nintendo owe Fobis Technologies, maker of the Weemote, anything? Did it infringe upon the tiny Florida-based company’s trademark? Donna wants to know.
Well, Time wants to know. The Weemote, which as we’ve mentioned here in the past, is a television remote control for kids that pre-dates the introduction of the Nintendo Wii by some six years. Now Fobis is complaining that the unofficial nickname for the Wii’s remote control has all but made its trademark worthless. The thing is, because Nintendo doesn’t actually use the word “Wiimote”—though everyone online does, as do retailers like Amazon.com—it’s not violating anything as far as the letter of the law is concerned.
The Weemote folks even went to Nintendo to see if they could work out some sort of agreement. Nintendo, in typical family-friendly fashion, refused.
As it stands, the Fobis folks have little to no recourse, other than to ask retailer to stop using “wiimote” tags in their product descriptions.
In light of this, I will stop using “wiimote” to refer to Nintendo’s Wii remote control, even though it will have absolutely no impact on Fobis’ fortunes, and will encourage my fellow CrunchGear brethren to do likewise.
Nicholas,
The staff at Fobis Technologies appreciates your comments. Thank you for being considerate of our trademark.
I say to Fobis “GET OVER IT” … The End.
What exactly should Nintendo do about it, since they don’t use the terminology themselves?
Well it’s hard to say Nintendo did say also when they released the Wii that: “They where studding the market to see which was sale a lot.” Isn’t that why the Wii and I-Pod are always being described together.
O, sorry for DP, but i also say no.
Cause the Logo isn’t being damaged or anything, for an example; My friend/neighbor opened a business for piano fixing and tuning, but then someone use an exact replica of their logo but it was colored in not just an outline, although his business wasn’t harmed, they never did anything. also with WWF, world wrestling Federation, and World Wildlife Federation, both had the same name but world wrestling federation had to change to WWE cause of people asking if they, world wildlife federation, was wrestling polar bears, or some animal, but also the Wii remote isn’t doing any harm to Weemote now that could be why it is called Wii not Wee.
This is not much different than people referring to all facial tissues as Kleenex or sodas as Coke or any number of other similar situations. The difference comes in the fact that the products are completely different. Unfortunate for Fobis, but not much they can do about it. It’s too bad since the horrific nickname “Wiimote” sounds completely ridiculous. People should stop using it on that basis alone.