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Apple seeks to trademark “startup” in Australia

startupsmart.com.au

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Re: Apple seeks to trademark “startup” in Australia

#31

Post by obiterdictum »

rozap wrote: post #10
drylight wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't say Linux.

Spoken like someone who hasn't used Linux in the past decade.

I have been using it full-time circa 2006-2009. I guess that counts as "past decade".

1. There was no out of the box support of my particular NVidia video card, so I've had to build the driver from source and fiddle with my system to install it.

2. I've had userspace processes freeze on network activities and become impossible to kill, because of a kernel deadlock in my wireless driver.

3. Proper smooth fonts required work at the time (freetype did not ship with good subpixel hinting).

4. Proprietary media codecs did not work out of the box and required a third-party repositories.

5. The whole KDE four-point-not-really-zero debacle.

A minimalistic XMonad+Vim+terminal setup was decent and worked for me, but eventually I got sick of desktop Linux and moved to OSX.

I realise that many things have been fixed in the meantime, but it was not a flawless experience back then. If I was to give desktop Linux another shot today, I'd be cautiously optimistic, but not expect a miracle.

Re: Apple seeks to trademark “startup” in Australia

#32

Post by elnate »

josteink wrote: post #11
drylight wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't say Linux.

Linux is actually not half bad nowadays. It's not 2001 anymore. I've migrated my main laptop from Windows 8 to Elementary OS and the only complaint from my very non-technical SO is that things "are different" (i.e. the close button is in upper left corner of the window). Apart from that, everything just works. In fact it all worked out of the box, with the noticable exception of Skype. Linux is turning into a pretty…

Things like the close button position irk me quite a lot. Are there ways to make it look as simliar as possible to win7?

Re: Apple seeks to trademark “startup” in Australia

#33

Post by eropple »

snikolic wrote: post #29
kleiba wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multiple screen support.

As someone using OS X over Linux because of monitor-related reasons, I actually think Ubuntu supports multiple displays better than OS X.

IME, Linux has a long way to go for non-dual-head setups. I have four monitors with different geometries on two graphics cards on a Hackintosh and OS X handles it seamlessly. Ubuntu pukes hard and dies (or, almost as bad, just ignores monitors) when it can't figure out how it should handle them all in a single X session.

Re: Apple seeks to trademark “startup” in Australia

#34

Post by kleiba »

snikolic wrote: post #29
kleiba wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multiple screen support.

As someone using OS X over Linux because of monitor-related reasons, I actually think Ubuntu supports multiple displays better than OS X.

Really? I wish I had your luck then.

In my experience the state of graphics drivers is still a bit of a sad affair on Linux in general. I never got my two screen setup working properly, not out of the box, and not after fiddling with xorg.conf etc. for more than two days.

Re: Apple seeks to trademark “startup” in Australia

#35

Post by johnathanz »

hdra wrote: post #15
drylight wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't say Linux.

Say one thing OS X does objectively better than Linux. I honestly can't think of any.

OSX works out of the box; No distro fragmentation that could cause dependency issues; larger device support (that's a manufacturer thing as we know).

But I haven't used Linux in about 6 years, so things might've improved...

Re: Apple seeks to trademark “startup” in Australia

#37

Post by grabeh »

jacques_chester wrote: post #25

Trademarks are not global variables. They are scoped. In trademark law these are called "classes". If I have a trademark for McDonalds that covers navigation equipment, then the hamburger company can't sue me using their trademark which covers hamburgers. The coverage is scoped. Now! Observe the list of classes -- 37, 38, 41 and 42. Apple is essentially registering "startup" to cover devices, their maintenance, devel…

The owner of a mark with a sufficient reputation can take action against dissimilar goods and services where they're riding on the goodwill of the mark of course so TMs are not completely limited to their classes.

Rolex could sue me if used their marks on a good which they weren't registered in if I was trying to take unfair advantage of their mark, tractors for example.

Whilst it's highly unlikely in this case that Apple would, I think it's inappropriate to seek protection of the term in the first place, at least from a PR perspective and from the risk of trade mark creep.

Re: Apple seeks to trademark “startup” in Australia

#38

Post by rooshdi »

jacques_chester wrote: post #25

Trademarks are not global variables. They are scoped. In trademark law these are called "classes". If I have a trademark for McDonalds that covers navigation equipment, then the hamburger company can't sue me using their trademark which covers hamburgers. The coverage is scoped. Now! Observe the list of classes -- 37, 38, 41 and 42. Apple is essentially registering "startup" to cover devices, their maintenance, devel…

That's still ludicrous. Apple is trying to control a word any technology company would use.

Re: Apple seeks to trademark “startup” in Australia

#39

Post by jacques_chester »

grabeh wrote: post #37
jacques_chester wrote: post #25

Trademarks are not global variables. They are scoped. In trademark law these are called "classes". If I have a trademark for McDonalds that covers navigation equipment, then the hamburger company can't sue me using their trademark which covers hamburgers. The coverage is scoped. Now! Observe the list of classes -- 37, 38, 41 and 42. Apple is essentially registering "startup" to cover devices, their maintenance, devel…

The owner of a mark with a sufficient reputation can take action against dissimilar goods and services where they're riding on the goodwill of the mark of course so TMs are not completely limited to their classes. Rolex could sue me if used their marks on a good which they weren't registered in if I was trying to take unfair advantage of their mark, tractors for example. Whilst it's highly unlikely in this case that…

Granted, but I don't think "startup" is a sufficiently distinct brand to be taken advantage of.

But thankyou for the correction.

Re: Apple seeks to trademark “startup” in Australia

#40

Post by jacques_chester »

rooshdi wrote: post #38
jacques_chester wrote: post #25

Trademarks are not global variables. They are scoped. In trademark law these are called "classes". If I have a trademark for McDonalds that covers navigation equipment, then the hamburger company can't sue me using their trademark which covers hamburgers. The coverage is scoped. Now! Observe the list of classes -- 37, 38, 41 and 42. Apple is essentially registering "startup" to cover devices, their maintenance, devel…

That's still ludicrous. Apple is trying to control a word any technology company would use.

Within a narrow band of applicability. itafroma speculates that it's likely to be a retail package.

For example, suppose that Apple cuts out telcos and sells plans directly. What might those plans be called? It's easy to imagine the base plan being called "startup".

Or maybe it's a new technology or feature they plan to introduce. "Apple Startup, your gateway to the geohypersocialcloudappmotrons!". And so on.

If you're agin it, hire a trademark lawyer and lodge an objection. I've had good experiences with my lawyers: Golja, Haines and Friend in West Perth.

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