Id Software Is Trying to Stop a Man Who Wants to Name His Band 'Doomscroll'
kotaku.com
kotaku.com
I’m sure large companies have figured that they can eliminate a large segment with single word trademark route.
I bet this is what Facebook is planning too, eliminate every company from using any word with “meta” in it.
https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics/scope-protection
It seems that you're objecting to "common collactions." Do you mean common words used together? Like "General Electric" or "Master Card" or "Mountain Dew?"
It's also very common for people to file an objection to a Trademark registration. We've had SAP and other companies do it to us. The marks get granted anyway. It's just something Big Company lawyers to do get more billable hours.
Trademarks should not be basic units of common language. They shouldn't ever be single words (doom, apple, meta, square, etc), because single words are basic language building blocks. There ought to be a requirement that trademarks are reasonably unique to the company (Doom Inc. Apple Inc, etc). The onus should be on the trademarker to avoid entanglement with typical language use. It's unacceptable for a videogame franchise to encumber the word doom like this.
I believe the comment you're replying to is including "common collactions" for the same reason. It shouldn't be possible to trademark groups of words in common use with established meaning.
> However, trademarks generally have a "scope of protection" to apply to the goods and services that your company is involved with.
It doesn’t matter, the broadness of similar words and expressions is simply too big.
> Do you mean common words used together?
Words that are commonly used together.
>"General Electric" or "Master Card" or "Mountain Dew?"
As far as I know none of them are common collocations.
> It's just something Big Company lawyers to do get more billable hours.
Yeah, so it would be good to reduce the potential overlap of copyrights. Also, it is ridiculous to live in a world where some companies hold rights to use everyday expressions and ban other companies from using them.
??? I'm not sure I understand. Were we talking about copyrights?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caller%27s_Bane#Bethesda_lawsu...
I'm sure they all have lawyers though.
You can see that play out here in the early case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer
"As a condition of the settlement, Apple Computer agreed not to enter the music business, and Apple Corps agreed not to enter the computer business."
As long as the band Doomscroll doesn't make their logo look like Id's DOOM logo, and as long as they are very different Id doesn't own DOOM everywhere...
For example, Id would have very little legal argument if the band (or heck, even a company in a closely related industry) wanted to name themselves "Doomsday". Id's trademark doesn't cover all syllables that sound like Doom.
Again, if the band Doom Scroll's logo was styled similarly enough to the DOOM(tm) word mark, then there could be a case of trademark infringement because the point of a trademark is to protect the consumer so that you know that the brand you are buying from is actually the people you expect. It often doesn't feel that way because companies get overzealous and those cases are the ones we read about. Like the above.
Most people don't get upset when Lego group go after LEPIN: https://geekspin.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/lepin.jpg
If the Doom scroll logo is close enough to DOOM there could be a case here.
IANAL
Looking at just the name, Id might have a better case if the name was "DOOM Band" or something like that. But Doomscroll is taken from a word that doesn't even evoke the video game or even have anything to do with the same concept of "doom" that the game evokes.
Violating two trademarks in one go would be too much?
That would be my guess, and lifting Lego's format was just a convenience.
So what happened? Did Apple Corps get to collect a penalty here?
Apple Corpse is heavier than Doomscroll.
But it increases law firm billable hours and makes it look like they're zealously doing their job. All the incentives.
I’ve been active in my segment of the metal world for some time and I’ve always had the impression that this isn’t something most bands do, especially when they don’t have an actual brand to protect! I’ve certainly never done it, never been advised to do it, never had a discussion with anyone else about it.
Basically, they just don't want their brand Doom to be associated with the band "progressive thrash metal" music.
It's not the first time this happens and it does make sense. In another occurence about a podcast named Garden of Doom, they found an agreement.
> Jeff, who tried to trademark Garden of Doom, his podcast, says he came to an agreement with the lawyers representing Id Software; he says he just can’t make a movie or video game called Garden of Doom.
Very funny given the various metal genres that have been used in doom games.
> It's not the first time this happens and it does make sense. In another occurence about a podcast named Garden of Doom, they found an agreement.
How does this make sense? Why in the world would they have any say as to the use of the term "doom" in another market? The fact that there is precedence is more evidence that id/bethesda has a large legal department and isn't afraid to swing it around. If someone had the will (and means) to stand up to them, I highly doubt any judgement would come down saying that consumers confuse video games and heavy metal bands.
This whole thing makes id look pretty bad.
“Modern adverse sense of "fate, ruin, destruction" begins early 14c. and is general after c. 1600”
[1]: https://www.etymonline.com/word/doom#etymonline_v_13942
This is ridiculous. Companies don't magically own all the words.
Slogan trademarks are definitely another monster in the trademark space.
That doesn't mean much. Compare https://www.etymonline.com/word/loot :
> "goods taken from an enemy, etc.,"
> from PIE *roup-tro-, from root *reup- "to snatch"
This would make it a cognate of rape, by the way.
But being traceable to Proto-Indo-European doesn't tell you anything about the age of the English word. That is a loan from Hindi, and only dates back to the British Raj.
http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Milton/pl10.html
"Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom."
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45106/sonnet-116-let-...
Huh? Is 'from Old English dōm ("judgement")' not clear enough for you? It's a native word; as far as we know it's infinitely old.