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Comment by gojomo | Hacker News Reader

Er, as far as I can tell:

• this isn't associated with Jonathan but uses his name

• this isn't associated with Starbucks but uses their logo

• it's already empty

• there's no details to suggest that the previous transfer-balance vulnerability has been closed – only that it's now harder to optimize the attack by knowing when the active card has a fat balance

• the usable card number will change regularly so as to confuse both attackers and users, and putting primarily the site maintainer in full control of all monies deposited

What is this supposed to achieve? Are you really Sam Odio trying to prove another point?

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this isn't associated with Jonathan but uses his name

My name is Jonathan and I give this guy permission to use it. If you don't want someone to name their knock-off after your product, maybe don't name it after a common first name :)

By your logic, I should be able to make my own Craig's List.

And I guess that's exactly why trademarks were invented.

The popular site is called Craigslist, one word. If he had called it Craig's List, then yes, you would be able to make your own. It's your given name and a common English word. Not trademarkable.

See also: Windows.

It is not true that you have to combine things as a novel compound word (as with 'craigslist' and many other tech firms) in order to obtain trademark protection. Common names and plain words/phrases can be protected too, within a well-identified field of use, by either formal registration or force-of-use-over-time.

"Craig's List", in the field of an online listings site and community, is just as protectable as the smushed-together version. And, by risk of confusion with 'craigslist', the two-word version is now just as excluded from others' use as if 'craigslist' itself were named "Craig's List".

Even if your name is 'McDonald', you won't be able to open a "McDonald's" hamburger chain. If you wanted to sell cash registers worldwide, you couldn't start an "International Business Machines". You couldn't even get away with "Jonathan's International Business Machines".

Could you cite come case law here?

This introduction to trademarks from a course by the Harvard University Berkman Center for Internet and Society includes many legal references:

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/metaschool/fisher/domain/tm.htm

In the legal terminology, a trademark like either 'craigslist' or "Craig's List" would be considered a descriptive mark that has acquired secondary meaning via use, such that the consuming public identifies a mark with a particular producer. It now doesn't matter if your name is Craig and you have a List. If you name a business that and people are confused because the field of use is similar to those for which Craiglist is known, Craigslist has a valid case against you.

The Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark) also highlights that "The test is always whether a consumer of the goods or services will be confused as to the identity of the source or origin."

Another example of the primacy of the liklihood-of-confusion standard is the following guide page at the USPTO:

http://tess2.uspto.gov/webaka/html/Likelihood/Likelihood_of_...

Small changes in appearance/spelling/punctuation (like adding a space in the middle) are not enough to resolve a conflict.

Alas, that's not how it works for trademark law, or common courtesy. The relevant standard is whether use is likely to confuse.

By calling this "Jonathan's Card 2.0", and their explicit references, they're clearly trying to portray this as an official successor from the same agent(s). If Jonathan Card "1.0" cared about this, he could object on both legal and ethical grounds.

Maybe the point is to simply continue something great. And prevent people like Sam sitting at starbucks with his laptop playing songs every time the card reached a high balance.

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