I don't know whose side to take. Someone educate me?
Bandaid is trademarked and people use it all the time, xerox too.
Was the reddit group formed before 2007 ?
I noticed the other day my pillow has a trademark on the word "Jumbo". Where are the people getting upset about that?
Oh I see now from the EFF release:
As today's petition notes, the term "gaymer" had been in widespread use for years before Vizzini applied for a trademark. In fact, there's even a GaymerCon conference.
If you don't know whose side to take in a trademark dispute, one heuristic is: default to whichever side is trying to get the trademark invalidated. Because getting a trademark invalidated doesn't stop you using it -- it just stops you from using the law to stop other using it.
BTW, the key point in trademarks isn't whether there's prior use, technically. It's whether there's customary use, and (independently) whether the mark is purely descriptive. Widespread prior use is just evidence of those. (N.B. that's in the EU - I assume US law is similar, but don't actually know).
> I noticed the other day my pillow has a trademark on the word "Jumbo". Where are the people getting upset about that?
People are getting upset of this because they identify as gaymers - it's something they are. The word gets tied up with the identity. So naturally they get upset if someone tries to (from their POV) take the word away from them.
That's obviously where he got the domain name idea then and did a trademark the following year.
Remember the days when you could find a word that wasn't registered as a domain?
Even the fact he went for the .org leads me to believe the .com had to be in use already. Yup, registered and paid parking since 2002. Interesting he didn't bother to try to use the trademark to grab the .com
Prior art is irrelevant for trademarks -- a trademark doesn't have to be unique for you to use it. There was an item called a "macintosh" before the name Macintosh was trademarked. The word "dropbox" had been used in file sharing software long before the YC startup existed. Even the creator of gaymer.org doesn't claim to have invented the word "gaymer."
You can claim a trademark as long as no one else has already claimed the same name in the same context. Once you have established the trademark, you can prevent others from using that name, even if they have been using it for a long time.
Note that the "same context" is why there's unlikely to be a conflict with Gaymers Cider. In particular, the gaymer.org trademark only applies to social networks.
> Once you have established the trademark, you can prevent others from using that name, even if they have been using it for a long time.
You can prevent others from using it in the field the trademark was registered for to identify a product or service not approved by the trademark holder.
Most statements of trademark law being ridiculous for allowing people to "own" common words hinge on ignorance of these details.
Bandaid is trademarked and people use it all the time, xerox too.
Was the reddit group formed before 2007 ?
I noticed the other day my pillow has a trademark on the word "Jumbo". Where are the people getting upset about that?
Oh I see now from the EFF release:
As today's petition notes, the term "gaymer" had been in widespread use for years before Vizzini applied for a trademark. In fact, there's even a GaymerCon conference.