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An installation-art company called META (or Meta.is) is suing Meta (or meta.com)

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Re: An installation-art company called META (or Meta.is) is suing Meta (or meta.com)

#51

Post by pyuser583 »

joshmanders wrote: post #47
thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their argument hinges on the fact that both companies operate in the VR space, and I agree with Meta.is here. Trademark law is pretty clear about protecting a brand name within a given market. "Apple" and "Meta" are just words, yes, but if a second computer company named "Apple" were to appear, this would pretty clearly infringe on the Apple trademark, as opposed to say Apple T-Shirt Company.

> "Apple" and "Meta" are just words, yes, but if a second computer company named "Apple" were to appear, this would pretty clearly infringe on the Apple trademark, as opposed to say Apple T-Shirt Company. Which is exactly why Apple was called Apple Computers, Inc for a long time, because Apple already existed in computer space and Apple Computers was constantly sued by the original Apple until they finally came to an…

I thought the “other Apple” existed in the music space. Which wasn’t a problem, until Itunes.

Re: An installation-art company called META (or Meta.is) is suing Meta (or meta.com)

#52

Post by pacetherace »

chadash wrote: post #33

While I am not a fan of Facebook/Meta, I actually hope that they do not lose this case. If you want to name your company after a word that is in common usage, then you should have to deal with the fact that others may use the same word for their own purposes. JP Morgan seems like a name that hardly limits anyone trying to name their company. Apple or Meta are just words in common usage.

Well then good luck trying to start a new company called Apple or Meta.

Re: An installation-art company called META (or Meta.is) is suing Meta (or meta.com)

#55

Post by mr_toad »

hyperhopper wrote: post #45
whoibrar wrote: post #4

I also occassionally mourn the death of the word Meta, It was such a beautiful and succinct word. Meta means about the thing itself. It's seeing the thing from a higher perspective instead of from within the thing, like being self-aware. Not to forget the words like Metadata, Meta-physics, Meta-analysis, Metameme. Long live Meta[adjective].

I cry a little bit every time people use "meta" or "metagame" as a synonym for "strategy"

In the sense that people are gaming the game (min-maxing and optimising) then it makes perfect sense to me.

Some people seem to spend more time in the meta-game of coming up with the ideal strategy than they do actually playing the game. People who just copy the latest strategy aren’t really playing the meta-game, but English is ambiguous and playing the meta is obvious from context.

It’s not as bad as the people who use IP as a synonym for documentation.

Re: An installation-art company called META (or Meta.is) is suing Meta (or meta.com)

#56

Post by mr_toad »

coding123 wrote: post #29
whoibrar wrote: post #4

I also occassionally mourn the death of the word Meta, It was such a beautiful and succinct word. Meta means about the thing itself. It's seeing the thing from a higher perspective instead of from within the thing, like being self-aware. Not to forget the words like Metadata, Meta-physics, Meta-analysis, Metameme. Long live Meta[adjective].

It's perfect name for Facebook because now when we hear stories of "FBI Data collection was just the Meta Data" it will mean everything about you, your friends, your call voice data, pictures of your genitals and everything else!

Too much information.

Re: An installation-art company called META (or Meta.is) is suing Meta (or meta.com)

#58

Post by jonah »

TN1ck wrote: post #37
jonah wrote: post #8

Back in the day I worked at MetaCreations née MetaTools[0]. We had a web browser plugin that rendered streaming, progressive, interactive 3D - well before WebGL et. al. It shipped with IE and was available for other browsers as well. The MetaStream logo[1][2][3] was surprisingly similar to the Meta one. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MetaCreations [1] It was surprisingly hard to find a copy of the logo on image se…

I worked in a lab four years ago, where Kai (the designer of MetaTools) was an investor, but it didn't work out as although the tech was impressive and cool, it lacked the other components that are needed for a startup. They are still operating and building stuff in Edinburgh [0]. Sadly, they didn't release anything yet. [0] https://www.kpv-lab.co.uk/

Sadly, there's been a lot of that over the years - really neat and beautiful ideas which were either ahead of their time, or didn't quite find a use or market fit.

Separately, some various Kai Krause related links.

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

http://kai.sub.blue/en/

https://fr.ax/

https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/digicult/dc970... (Aside: it's kinda neat that this Atlantic archive from 1997 maintains a period-correct look.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryce_(software)#/media/File:B... (An example of the kind of UI Meta software had.)

Re: An installation-art company called META (or Meta.is) is suing Meta (or meta.com)

#59

Post by woojoo666 »

DEveritt wrote: post #15

There's loads of companies out there with extremely similar names. It's hard to come up with something totally unique. I believe, legally, it just can't be identical to a name already registered in the same state. When I was trying to name my own business, it was amazing to see how many names were already taken just in my state. Not that it makes it right for Meta/Facebook to do whatever they want but any rebranding…

> Not that it makes it right for Meta/Facebook to do whatever they want but any rebranding they chose would probably have stepped on someone's toes.

Exactly why I hope Facebook looses this case. Every other startup is being forced to come up with weird unique names, Facebook shouldn't get a pass just because they're big.

Re: An installation-art company called META (or Meta.is) is suing Meta (or meta.com)

#60

Post by jrm4 »

chadash wrote: post #33

While I am not a fan of Facebook/Meta, I actually hope that they do not lose this case. If you want to name your company after a word that is in common usage, then you should have to deal with the fact that others may use the same word for their own purposes. JP Morgan seems like a name that hardly limits anyone trying to name their company. Apple or Meta are just words in common usage.

Broadly, though - trademark law specifically makes note of how "evocative" the particular word is. Which is to say, "Apple" for computers is more permissible than "Apple" for e.g. a food company.

Not sure where I'd put "Meta" here though, it's so generic for anything.

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