I worked at a startup in the late 90s called Bolt. It's hard to protect your name when it's a short, commonly-used word.
Dear Instagram
91–100 of 132 posts
Re: Dear Instagram
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The strange-made-up-word naming trend is annoying Why? Is it really a “trend”? Chevrolet, Toyota, Lexus, Microsoft, Kodak, Leica, Nikon, Canon, Nokia, Rolex. Some of these are not entirely made up, but they sound like it if you are not familiar with small Japanese towns.
> Toyota Actually, Toyota[1] (豊田) is indeed a Japanese town, not even particularly small and is the home of Toyota Motor Corporation. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota,_Aichi
Same with Nokia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia,_Finland
Re: Dear Instagram
#93It's hard to have much sympathy when your app already has an identical name (and a very similar logo) to a mobile web browser launched four years earlier: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolt_(web_browser)
It's also hard to sympathize over confusion around a 4 letter word that's ALREADY a word.
Re: Dear Instagram
#94Dear Bolt.co, I truly wish you luck in your fight against Instagram. Name stealing is a rough game. I know because I have been traveling on Bolt buses for 8 years now ( http://www.boltbus.com/ ). I know there is some confusion because you have basically the same symbol. Maybe there aren't too many ways to vary a lightning bolt shooting through an "O" in the word "Bolt" but I welcome you (and Instagram to try). Sincer…
I think you miss the problem here. There is very little confusion between BoltBus and Bolt.co in the sense that they are in completely different industries and the likelihood of confusion is low. As bolt.co is claiming, there are many people who appear to be confused between instagram's offering and the company's product (they are arguably in the same space and possibly competitors).
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Re: Dear Instagram
#95Reminds me of when Facebook did this with Papers[1] too. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7171724
Off topic, but I'm curious, how do you dig in and find old HN postings? I see a lot of people doing it.
Re: Dear Instagram
#96The #1 way to spot some 'mushy web3.0 startup' is to see if they name their fledgling product some generic, overloaded dictionary word. My perception has always been that owners choose this sort of name to market their product as 'truly the most no-nonsense utilitarian solution, for people who Get Things Done like me & u.' There have been a lot of these lately. Chosing a dull name to be cool isn't helping anyone and I hope collisons like this latest groupthink help the trend die quickly.
Re: Dear Instagram
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
The key issue is over whether or not the mark has a widespread reputation/is well-known. If I am able to show my mark has either, then if someone makes use of a similar/identical mark but for completely different services/goods then I can restrain that other party's use if I can show that their use takes unfair advantage of my mark. For example if Microsoft Combine Harvesters popped up, it would be relatively straigh…
Interesting. So what is Microsoft Combine Harvesters was founded before Microsoft Corporation yes the latter became larger faster? Even though Microsoft Corp is larger they were also later to the game. Can they try to get exclusive rights to Microsoft?
I highly recommend researching the Nissan Motors vs Nissan Computer case, as it covers many subtleties regarding names and trademarks
Re: Dear Instagram
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
It also seems that bolt.co and Instagram's Bolt are much more similar to each other (apps dedicated to person→person communication) I disagree. A web browser is used for person to person communication too. All three are used for very, very different forms of it, though.
Trademark is about preventing confusion, not owning words. A browser is very different from an app voice/text app.
My point was that the two Bolts barely compete with each other. One is for voice calls, the other is for quick picture sharing. I can't imagine many scenarios where you could use them interchangeably.
Re: Dear Instagram
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
The key issue is over whether or not the mark has a widespread reputation/is well-known. If I am able to show my mark has either, then if someone makes use of a similar/identical mark but for completely different services/goods then I can restrain that other party's use if I can show that their use takes unfair advantage of my mark. For example if Microsoft Combine Harvesters popped up, it would be relatively straigh…
Interesting. So what is Microsoft Combine Harvesters was founded before Microsoft Corporation yes the latter became larger faster? Even though Microsoft Corp is larger they were also later to the game. Can they try to get exclusive rights to Microsoft?
First user issues aren't as relevant in trade marks as in other intellectual property rights. Potentially you could have two companies in discrete markets/territories build up goodwill in an identical name with a dispute only being triggered when some form of encroachment occurs.
A good example was the Budweiser v Budvar saga http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budweiser_Budvar_Brewery#Tradem...
Generally, you would hope that the parties could come to an agreement and enter what's known as a co-existence agreement where they just agreed to continue but in some cases agree not to further encroach on each other's markets for example.
The above example just ran and ran with each filing suits around the world, showing the difficulties of deciding who should have sole rights to a name when both have built up substantial goodwill over a long period of time.
Re: Dear Instagram
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that part of the issue is that in a competitive marketplace, the risk of a third party either a) objecting to your short common word upon its creation, or b) coming along at a later date and selecting the same or similar mark are much higher than if you create a compound name or a fanciful/unusual combination of words as your mark. Simply put, if you create a fanciful term you will be able to operate with gre…
> If I was Instagram I would probably offer a small sum to Bolt.co to change their name on the basis that I could offer a sum now or know I could have a deep reserve of budget for legal fees to argue that Bolt.co has not developed sufficient goodwill/reputation to be entitled to prevent Instagram's usage of 'Bolt' . What? That is not at all how trademark works. If Instagram wanted, it might have a shot at a protracte…
My example is how it would work in the absence of any trade mark registrations. I incorrectly assumed there were no registrations in place here. Having checked, yes, the presence of a registration would greatly improve Bolt's leverage in the manner you describe.