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Comment by tehlike | Hacker News Reader

Is tron name itself a violation of trademark, or copyright of Disney? Not much knowledgable on IP laws in the US, hence the question.

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> Is tron name itself a violation of trademark, or copyright of Disney? Not much knowledgable on IP laws in the US, hence the question.

Copyright would apply to the actual film, script, perhaps other elements. For the title, I believe this would be a trademark issue. Whether it is enforceable here is beyond my knowledge. I tried a quick search on the status, but didn’t see the info I hoped for in the top several hits.

I wouldn't have thought so.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRON_command

I _think_ the TRON franchise was a nod to the TRON command in BASIC, which predated the name.

The other TRON that's vaguely related to computers is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRON_project

Titles can't be copyrighted. Words can be trademarked, but they aren't exclusive. As long as there is no risk of confusion, then the same word can be trademarked by different people for different purposes. Think: Apple Computer vs Apple the record label -- it wasn't an issue until Apple Computer started getting into the music business.

so called tron foundation claims to be an "entertainment on blockchain", sounds like a reason for confusion with some weak definition. I suspect disney lawyers could be taking as a bit more stronger.

Apple Computers were already taken to court before they entered the music business but settled and part of that settlement was not to enter the music "biz".

Obviously they did later enter the music business, which is when Apple Corp (the record label) litigated for a second time.

Pretty sure they had signed and entered an agreement preemptively, and their subsequent violation is what caused the later suit.

Nope. That was just the last in a series of different suits:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer

"Tron" is just a sound generically associated with futuristic high tech, most likely originally because of the word "electron".

From OED: "tron" is "used in the names of devices and machines, spec. particle accelerators, as cyclotron (1935), betatron (1941), phantastron (1943), levitron (1960)."

But in the cases of the movies, wasn't it form Trace-ON/Trace-OFF in some programing environments?

It is also the name of the BASIC command “tron”, reflecting the role of the program created by Alan Bradley, specifically to trace the MCP and find weaknesses (which are later exploited to delete the MPC and release the evidence of Dillinger’s fraud).

Also klystron (1937) and magnetron (1910).

Tron wasn't just the movie ... there was software embodied as a video game so in my opinion, you can't argue that you're in a different business. domain.

Nope! Trademarks are granted for a specific use cases or industry, movie titles can't be copyrighted .. they are only protected by MPAA(Motion pictures association).. and MPAA only can regulate Movie names, video games or toy lines are however... See https://www.applebank.com and get amused by their Apple logo.. they did the fruit depiction right

Thank you all who responded.

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