Google stole Nexus name, says PKD family | Hacker News Reader

Google stole Nexus name, says PKD family

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11 pointschaosmachine17 comments

This reminds me of a trademark suit out of the 1980s, when the Lexis-Nexis people sued Toyota when it introduced its "Lexus" luxury car to the U.S. market.

From a Wikipedia article summarizing this dispute: "When Toyota launched the Lexus line of luxury vehicles in 1987, Mead Data Central sued for trademark infringement on the grounds that consumers of upscale products (such as lawyers) would confuse "Lexus" with "Lexis". A market-research survey undertaken at the time asked consumers to identify the spoken word "Lexis"; the survey showed that a minuscule quantity of people thought of the computerized legal search system, a similarly minuscule number thought of Toyota's luxury car division, and an overwhelming plurality thought of a soap opera character. Mead lost on appeal in 1989 when the Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit held that there was little chance of consumer confusion. Today, the two companies have an amiable business relationship, and in 2002 implemented a joint promotion called 'Win A Lexus On Lexis!'" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LexisNexis)

If a survey were taken today asking people to identify the spoken word "Nexus," I would suspect that responses would be all over the board, with only a very few associating it with the Nexus-6 androids (ironically, a good number might even associate it with the Nexis search service - maybe the Lexis-Nexis people ought to litigate the other half of their name, just for completeness!).

Of course, the word "nexus" itself is of ancient origin, deriving from the Latin fourth declension noun ("nexus," meaning a "bond," "binding," or "fastening").

On a final trademark footnote, if a fictional character acquires a "secondary meaning" (meaning that the public strongly associates it with a particular source, e.g., "Mickey Mouse" = Disney), this can be an independent basis for infringement. Can't even begin to imagine this to have happened here, however.

This is such a silly lawsuit. Nexus is a generic word, long used by geeks to describe anything vaguely cool with a centralized component.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nexus

There are 4 magazines, 2 video games and at least 5 different pieces of software (the very first version of WWW, written by Tim Berners-Lee, was called Nexus). There are also 5 bands and another 5 albums called Nexus.

It isn't a lawsuit. Just a non-lawyer shooting her mouth off.

One doubts that it will ever become a lawsuit, since there's little sense in throwing away legal fees. There isn't even a first approximation to a case here.

I largely agree that it is a silly lawsuit but, to play devil's advocate for a second, there are a few factors that make it slightly less cut and dried.

Firstly, Google's phone is the Nexus One while the androids' model in "Bladerunner"/"Do Androids Dream..." was Nexus Six - presumably the last in a series beginning with something like Nexus One.

Secondly, how come the "Droid" has to mention George Lucas's claim to the term but the "Nexus One" does not need to refer to PKD?

Taking off my devil's advocate hat, I think that the name "Nexus One" was clearly inspired by Bladerunner (engineers/nerds working on a platform called "Android" was always going to lead to lots of robotic cultural references) but that does not mean the estate of PKD should be able to make a buck from it. The use of "Nexus One" in this way should be a sign that "Bladerunner" has become an important cultural touchstone, at least in tech circles.

One difference is that Starwars franchise is very heavily into merchandising. PKD is certainly not.

Ok but the word "Droid" was indeed coined in Star Wars, whereas "Nexus One" was never coined anywhere, since the Nexus-1 model was never mentioned in the book or the movie. Its just a vague allusion

it's also a WoW instance

And a Protoss probe factory.

And a place Malcolm McDowell really wants to get to.

This seems a stretch, as there, so far as i know, no merchandising based on stuff in PKD's work. Give that science fiction is an imagination-rich medium, many things that are realized were first mentioned in science fiction. Would the Frank Herbert estate clamp down on manufacturers of Crysknife? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crysknife. Or any of the concepts in Larry Niven's Ringworld, like the Sunflowers, or the cziltang brone? And who would own the IP rights there--Larry Niven, or the Ringworld Engineers?

The lawsuit's main weakness is that the masses aren't familiar with a cult movie called Blade Runner, and even less of them know of Philip K. Dick and his literary works even though a lot of his books have been turned into smash box office movies.

There is no confusion.

In my eyes, Google if anything used the name to pay homage to Philip K Dick, much like Apple tried to name a computer after Sagan.

In 1994, Apple Computer began developing the Power Macintosh 7100. They chose the internal code name "Carl Sagan", the reference being that the mid-range PowerMac 7100 should make Apple "billions and billions."Though the internal project name was never used in public marketing, it did come up in Usenet postings and news of the name grew from there. When Sagan learned of this he sued Apple Computer to force the use of a different project name. Other models released conjointly had code names such as "Cold fusion" and "Piltdown Man", and Sagan was displeased at being associated with what he considered pseudoscience. (He was at the time writing a book discrediting pseudoscience.) Though Sagan lost the lawsuit Apple engineers complied with his demands anyway and renamed the project "BHA" (for Butt-Head Astronomer). Sagan promptly sued Apple for libel over the new name, claiming that it subjected him to contempt and ridicule, but he lost this lawsuit as well. Still, the 7100 saw another name change: it was finally referred to internally as "LAW" (Lawyers Are Wimps).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan

They have no case.

You can't copyright a name (especially not one which is also an english word), and trademarks only apply within their specific commercial category, and books (even SiFi books) and phones (or computers) are not in the same category.

Since when is it theft to make a literary reference?

am i the only one that didn't immediately know PKD was Philip K Dick and now feel a bit sheepish (no pun intended)...

PKD also stands for Polycystic Kidney Disease which was my first thought.

Apple stole apple name, says McIntosh family.

Heck, who will speak for Henry Miller?

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