Hacker News Reader

Comment by neilv | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand how the beverage company could rightfully object to any game title like "Dark Deception: Monsters & Mortals".

It sounds like countless other games, and I can't imagine it being mistaken for a beverage.

Monsters are an idea going back in stories for millennia before the beverage brand existed.

Board games, and then video games, were inspired by these stories of monsters, to make interactive experiences around the ideas.

And the respective logos I just saw don't really look similar to my eye, other than both "horror-y/monster-y", but in different ways.

If the truth of situation turns out to be as stupid as is alleged, and Internet pitchforks are required, be aware that the Monster "M" logo does look much like a pitchfork (but again, the generic pitchfork came first, and is a widely used idea)...

View on HN

> Board games, and then video games, were inspired by these stories of monsters, to make interactive experiences around the ideas.

Yep, BoardGameGeek has 10 pages of board games with 'Monster' in its title. They going to go after all of them?

Just since 2022 there's been: King of Monster Island, Monster Hunter World, Monsters on Board, Meeples & Monsters, Monsterpocalypse, Silver Coin: Age of Monster Hunters, Monster Pit, Cube Monster, Monster Inn, Funkoverse Strategy Game: Universal Monsters, Monster Rock, Shadows: Heroes & Monsters, Monsters and the Things That Destroy Them, The Witcher: Old World - Monster Trail, Boss Monster Big Box, Monsters, Ichabod Jones: Monster Hunter, Monster Lands 2, The Night Cage: Monster Pack, Monster Marathon, Nine Worlds: Creatures and Monsters, Monster Science, Monster Munch, Beautiful Monsters, Monstersuppe, Monster Capture Race, Monsters Messed Up My Room, Hunting Monsters, Monster Hunter International, Cthulhu Wars: Smell Like a Monster, Stomp The Monster, Socks Monster, Monster Mouth, Monster Mash, Huck + Monster, Monsters & Minecarts, Yummy Yummy Monster Tummy, Ragnarok: Monster Card Collector, Monster Girl High School, Monsters of Loch Lomond, Making Monsters, Monster Zone, and a bunch of promos for the very popular game Kingdom Death Monster.[1]

[1]: https://boardgamegeek.com/geeksearch.php?action=search&objec...

In that list is Monster Hunter, a very successful and famous line of video games from Japanese publisher Capcom.

I think it might be interesting if Capcom decided to sue Monster Energy for trademark infringement.

"it's monster hunting time!"

The original AD&D Monster Manual from 1977:

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

Monster Rancher

Yeah I am of the opinion that if you are going to name your brand “Monster” (or any other one word name) you are just going to have to deal with other people using it. This is like moving next to a massive international airport that’s been there for 50 years and complaining about the noise. Sorry buddy but at this point it’s on you.

If someone came out with another drink called Monster, fair enough, that's what trademarks are for, but otherwise absolutely. Use a word or phrase that existed before and you should have no hope of defending it as a trademark.

It's not that they object, its that they have a legal team. That team's job is to look for opportunities to take money that is being left on the table. Obviously this is absurd, I'm sure the lawyers filing the claims personally think its absurd too, but if there's a 1/1000th chance of a payout then its worth it because the lawyers for monster are on retainer anyway and their costs are already sunk. They are probably actively trolling for opportunities like this all the time, otherwise they'd be leaving money on the table.

They’re not very good lawyers if going after an indie game is their idea of a money grab.

They’re more likely just conservative IP lawyers concerned about dilution.

They probably go after this and a hundred other things at once which they can do with their size. I'm imagining a madlibs lawsuit template they have a paralegal or even a computer script fill in details when a vaguely relevant target is identified. As the Canadian philosopher W. Gretzky said, you miss 100% the shots you don't take.

IANAL but I thought this type of action is used to argue in the future that the trademark holder is vigorously defending its use, even if it seems frivolous.

Trademark holders only need to defend their trademark in the product categories they have registered for that trademark. So, obviously a beverage with the word "monster" would be infringing for the drink trademark, they likely should not pursue for the games product category. I looked up their trademark on TESS: https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4805:lk... It is extremely broad, including every conceivable product category but is registered for "Monster Energy"

They might want to plan for the contingency that they might one day release some monster energy related game.

That's not how litigation works. It is not zero cost for the plaintiff. It is not all "sunk cost."

Besides that they usually hire outside counsel who are used to doing litigation, If that firm isn't based in the city where the suit was filed, then they hire local counsel who's appeared in front of that judge.

There are court costs, witness costs, deposition expenses... it goes on and on. It is definitely not handled all in-house by the Monster legal team.

And they should get slapped fucking big time for wasting everyone's time and money. Not okay.

>I don't understand how the beverage company could rightfully object to any game title like "Dark Deception: Monsters & Mortals".

It makes a bit more sense when you look at the game's logo, specifically the font they use for the word "Monsters"

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/dark-deception-game/images...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f7/Monster_Energ...

I don't see it? How do you feel about them going after Ubisoft's Gods and Monsters?

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/GBzHJbeZpPI/maxresdefault.jpg

>How do you feel about them going after Ubisoft's Gods and Monsters?

Ridiculous overreach.

I had the same initial reaction to this story, but I could imagine a scenario where someone saw the dark deception logo and thought it sort of looked like the Monster energy logo. Having said that, I still don't think there's any real chance of confusion.

Yeah no, I’d assert that any similarities there, such that they exist, are due to them both drawing on the same prior art/culture. It’s kind of insane that Monster gets to just assimilate all of that under its wing for free.

See "Interstate 60" (2002), the town of lawyers episode.

Deception is also part of their company strategy and image they try to protect. But seriously, this is just broken trademark and copyright laws at work again.

I heard their next target is the monster mash song..

Reply on news.ycombinator.com