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Comment by gerggerg | Hacker News Reader

1) It is confusing. Batman is neither a common word nor name. Without reading about it you could easily mistake it for a product of the DC comics web team.

2) I'm sure they care about their trademark being devalued through unauthorized uses.

The real defense batman.js has is that the library is named after a turkish provence: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Batman_Provin...

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Trademarks have no application outside of trade. If they're not selling batman.js or seeking to confuse buyers of Batman merchandise, there is no trademark violation. Especially considering this is a web development framework, which isn't even remotely related to Batman media.

Well we both know it's a very large grey area. But while I agree that the combination of the words bat and man alone could in someway be construed as non associated with the comic star, using code examples like:

batWatch = Batman currentCrimeReport: Batman address: Batman number: "123" street: "Easy St" city: "Gotham"

- and -

jokerSimulator.get("why so serious") #=> "WHY SO SERIOUS, HA HA HA!"

kind of destroys the ambiguity.

Don't get me wrong, I think the technology behind batman.js is interesting and useful. I just think it's rather unfortunate that they chose a name with such strong pre-conceptions and that is so childish.

you say childish, I say fun. why so serious? ;)

It doesn't matter if it's associated with the comic star, it only matters if it's in the same area as the trademark.

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