111–120 of 162 posts
It seems Facebook simply doesn't care. FiftyThree's complaint will blow over in a few days.
However, FiftyThree is signing up plenty of new users from the story. They're probably genuinely upset but this won't be their death and it might even be a good thing. I'd never heard of Paper beforehand.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The generic name seems to have worked out well for Apple though, hasn't it?
Which Apple? it worked out okay for the company that came along and took the name later. Apple Corp has essentially lost their name at this point though
Pfft. What a silly request. This is an entirely different application. Should we expect an upcoming blog post from 53 complaining that Crayola has released a new product entitled "Pencil"? If you want to protect your name, use a protectable name. If you're going to use an entirely generic name then deal with it... wait hang on... Dunder Mifflin just called... they want their name back too. Cool company, great product…
Whats more, Wacom also has an app called Paper, which does something very similar to 53 paper. Not sure which one was there first, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was Wacom.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whats more, Wacom also has an app called Paper, which does something very similar to 53 paper. Not sure which one was there first, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was Wacom.
It was Wacom. Which was why Paper called themselves "Paper by 53".
Pfft. What a silly request. This is an entirely different application. Should we expect an upcoming blog post from 53 complaining that Crayola has released a new product entitled "Pencil"? If you want to protect your name, use a protectable name. If you're going to use an entirely generic name then deal with it... wait hang on... Dunder Mifflin just called... they want their name back too. Cool company, great product…
Insofar as FiftyThree is merely making a polite request as a matter of professional courtesy rather than threatening legal action, then I don't think your criticism applies. They didn't get nasty about it, they didn't cite some bizarre legal arguments where they claimed to forever own the word Paper. They just made a cordial request. I think that's entirely reasonable and makes them come across very good in this situ…
Look at all the publicity, they are on Reddit, news sites, twitter, HN... I've never heard of them until today, and I imagine I'm, not alone.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You might be surprised to learn that in the trademark law, common words like "paper" or "candy" can be used by multiple companies without them infringing on each other while "Coca-Cola" is way too specific for that.
why isn't Coca-Cola also a descriptive word? It describes the product (two important ingredients).
You can't mention or search for them without barfing out the company name, and sometimes a specific property alongside to be unambiguous about your meaning. It makes finding discussions and blog posts harder because people don't have a common language for these poorly-named things.
It just seems like these companies are shooting themselves in the foot. Is natural word-of-mouth growth no longer a concern?
[1]: http://reactjs.com/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Facebook was completely generic. Facebook used to be term for the paperback student profile books that universities produced. Facebook the website started as an electronic version of the paper facebooks.
Facebook was completely generic. Yes, Facebook WAS generic. They would have had a difficult time enforcing their brand from the start. Once a brand becomes a household name (which is admittedly a vague metric), the rules are different. See Apple, Windows, Sun, Sharp, Digital.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whenever I hear the name "Paper" in a mobile / tablet context, I immediately think of 53, and I don't even have an iPad. If Facebook Paper is successful, that will no longer be the case (but it will hurt my perception of Facebook Paper in the meantime). That said, I don't think 53 can claim any exclusive rights to the name, and I'm happy to see they haven't - they have just asked with exquisite politeness.
Whenever I hear the name "Paper" in a mobile / tablet context, I immediately think of 53, and I don't even have an iPad. If I took ten people off the street, in San Francisco itself, and asked them who made an iPhone app called "Paper" a majority would probably already tell me Facebook. Perhaps one of them would know of 53, and probably not by name. Being in the mobile software community, we know of a lot of "success…
I imagine their plan has always been to enjoy the use Paper as long as they can, and rebrand when they can't anymore.
If 53 didn't register Paper as a trademark, they are pretty much SOL, right? If they did, it's pretty clear that Facebook's property creates confusion in the market. Trademark law seems pretty clear here, but IANAL.
As far as international usage, that's a different story.