I’ve also heard from comments on news sites that ‘silence is golden’ is now trademarked by AMC theaters and Apple is going after companies using the word ‘Pod’ in product names.
If any of these are trademark in such a way where you can get sued for having a website address for a bookstore like BookWorld then the trademarking process has gone to total absurdity, when in the future will it be when small businesses have to have names like ‘Yxtlyiblyt’ because all the words that make sense are trademarked?:eek:
The whole idea of that is beyond stupid.
I don’t see how phrases that my grandparents used cannot be seen as public domain and off limits to copyright.
This is what happens when companies and rich-kid multi-millionaires have to much money to spend. The word ‘book’ cannot be trademarked. It’s too common of a word. According to US trademark law common words cannot be trademarked.
I’m not a lawyer, but I’m pretty sure that trademarks only apply to similar businesses. Facebook is just trying to prevent the rise of social networks with names similar to theirs. (eg, FacePlace or PeopleBook or stupid things like that.) That said, these sorts of things are pretty silly.
Trademarks are only concerned with commercial use of a particular name, symbol or phrase.
Facebook is trying to set boundaries around use of “similars,” which it is trying to do by protecting both halves of its two-part name. Even to the extent that it might be able to do so:
You can still use these words in their common usage.
It’s mostly a waste of lawyer-money since US trademarks apply only in the US, and the Internet most-decidedly doesn’t.
The ideal trademark, of course, is something that has no use or meaning other than its purpose in trade. (Example: “Kodak.”)