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Comment by PietdeVries | Hacker News Reader

And just in the news:

T-Mobile says it owns exclusive rights to the color magenta

https://adage.com/article/digital/t-mobile-says-it-owns-excl...

Another fun story: Chicago-based poke company goes after Hawaiian restaurants over the word 'Aloha': https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/native-hawaiian-a...

"Chicago-based poke company"

Everything about that seems like a bad idea.

Definitely seems fishy to me....

A Florida-based bar did the same with the Fijian equivalent of Aloha: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-45675016

Well that's outrageous.

It's one thing to sue over similar names—I can see a case that people might have misconceptions over products. Saying you own the rights to a color is ridiculous. T-Mobile and Lemonade are in different industries.

Hershey trademarked the Reese's orange

https://newfoodeconomy.org/food-company-color-trademarks-ree...

I'm OK with that, to a point, within a narrow scope. If you go to grab a chocolate bar off a shelf, you want reasonable assurance that it's what you think you're getting, and not Re-Sees Peanut Butter Caps. Trademarks were an early form of consumer protection.

I still remember when Sony patented (trademarked?) a number.

There is a fundamental equivalence between numbers and other concepts. Any concept can be mapped to any particular number based on the method of encoding chosen.

Intellectual property is saying that I own this particular result of turning a number into usable output regardless of starting number.

This is to say that we can't tell without actually decoding the number so we are in fact asserting that there is a chance we own any and all numbers if someone later publishes the encoding that would turn your number into a picture of a cartoon mouse.

There is a fundamental equivalence between unique pictures of a cartoon mice and automobiles. Any automobile can be mapped to any particular unique cartoon mouse picture based on the method of encoding chosen.

Automobile ownership is saying that I own this particular result of turning a unique cartoon mouse picture into usable car regardless of starting cartoon mouse picture.

This is to say that we can't tell without actually decoding the cartoon mouse picture so we are in fact asserting that there is a chance we own any and all cartoon mouse pictures if someone later publishes the encoding that would turn your cartoon mouse picture into an automobile.

This makes me think of https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number For those who are interested.

Cadbury and the color purple

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/02/02/chocolate-wars-b...

It's interesting, and I hope worth spreading in Germany where the laws on this exist, that a company can lay claim to a color and enforce that against other companies who are not competing in the same industry.

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