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Calibre beta announced

calibreapp.com

11–20 of 21 posts

Re: Calibre beta announced

#11
post #5

I was a bit confused by this, since I usually associate "calibre" with the e-book creation/conversion software with that name. http://calibre-ebook.com/

Came here to say the same thing; I excitedly thought it was an announcement for a new Calibre beta. Looks like Calibre also holds a trademark: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4806:h6j... There seems to be a high likelihood of confusion given that both are software products, but IANAL.

Here's a permalink http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=3666525&caseType=US_REGIST...

Re: Calibre beta announced

#13

I was a bit confused by this, since I usually associate "calibre" with the e-book creation/conversion software with that name. http://calibre-ebook.com/

Happens to me quite often on HN. I wish people would append [TypeOfSoftware] or something like that to submitted titles.

Re: Calibre beta announced

#14
post #8
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to say the same thing; I excitedly thought it was an announcement for a new Calibre beta. Looks like Calibre also holds a trademark: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4806:h6j... There seems to be a high likelihood of confusion given that both are software products, but IANAL.

I think the trademark issue should be OK. My understanding is that you can have overlap in trademarked names when it's in very different markets, but IANAL

Knowing the court's record of incompetence when it comes to technology, I doubt they'd be able to distinguish the two beyond "software companies".

Re: Calibre beta announced

#15
post #7

how hard is it to google your app's name before releasing it? or do you know and just not care that you're taking somebody else's name?

One is ebook software, the other is a performance optimization tool.

You can have different products using the same name so long as they're not in the same category.

So the guy who made this software isn't "taking someone else's name", he's using a name that isn't being used in that category (AFAIK).

Background: I once had to settle a trademark infringement case.

Re: Calibre beta announced

#16

This looks awesome! Really useful for front-end devs.

Agreed. This type testing has been relegated to individual browser testing for too long. Hopefully tools like this will enable teams to address browser-side performance testing in the same way that tools like New Relic have enabled app-side performance evaluation.

Re: Calibre beta announced

#17
post #15
post #7

how hard is it to google your app's name before releasing it? or do you know and just not care that you're taking somebody else's name?

One is ebook software, the other is a performance optimization tool. You can have different products using the same name so long as they're not in the same category. So the guy who made this software isn't "taking someone else's name", he's using a name that isn't being used in that category (AFAIK). Background: I once had to settle a trademark infringement case.

according to the technicality of trademark law, it's probably okay (depending on how good the lawyers are - in some cases a court desides that "technology" counts as a market, in other cases they want to get super specific). from the perspective of being able to find your product in a search engine or just generally not being a dick, whoever made this calibre took the name of the ebook software.

Re: Calibre beta announced

#18
post #15
post #7

how hard is it to google your app's name before releasing it? or do you know and just not care that you're taking somebody else's name?

One is ebook software, the other is a performance optimization tool. You can have different products using the same name so long as they're not in the same category. So the guy who made this software isn't "taking someone else's name", he's using a name that isn't being used in that category (AFAIK). Background: I once had to settle a trademark infringement case.

It might be legal but it definitely is a very poor strategy.

Re: Calibre beta announced

#19
post #15
post #7

how hard is it to google your app's name before releasing it? or do you know and just not care that you're taking somebody else's name?

One is ebook software, the other is a performance optimization tool. You can have different products using the same name so long as they're not in the same category. So the guy who made this software isn't "taking someone else's name", he's using a name that isn't being used in that category (AFAIK). Background: I once had to settle a trademark infringement case.

Using the same name as another software product may be allowed legally, but it's still a terrible idea to name your company/product in such a way that it becomes nearly impossible to even discover.

Re: Calibre beta announced

#20
post #15
post #7

how hard is it to google your app's name before releasing it? or do you know and just not care that you're taking somebody else's name?

One is ebook software, the other is a performance optimization tool. You can have different products using the same name so long as they're not in the same category. So the guy who made this software isn't "taking someone else's name", he's using a name that isn't being used in that category (AFAIK). Background: I once had to settle a trademark infringement case.

> You can have different products using the same name so long as they're not in the same category.

Usually that is taken as meaning categories such as 'beverages' vs 'cars'.

Trying to extend it to saying 'my three-wheeled car product called Ford Focus is in a different category to that four-wheeled one' would be unlikely to succeed

A recent example in the software domain was Python ( cloud services ) versus Python ( the language ). Python cloud services is now called Veber Cloud.

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