Hacker News Reader

Anyone can use such a name and maybe even get a trademark filed, but my understanding (IANAL) is that defending their trademark (i.e in court) will be much more difficult. Just a quick search on USPTO.org shows a ton of "X" trademarks and some even relating to social media that aren't Twitter's.

View on HN

My cat Xerxes was found to violate this trademark on multiple occasions.

Sure, anyone can use any name, but should they? For instance there have to be some limitations on calling yourself General Hospital unless you actually have a medical license.

There are other laws around how you can use names. For example, only companies with a banking license can be called a bank. That's why many holding companies are called Bancorp.

It's intentional that trademark registration is reasonably easy, but enforcement is more thorough. When (say) 99% of trademarks are not contested, this saves the government agencies substantial resources.

Think of it like a software optimisation where edge servers cache files when they are requested for the first time, but not proactively when 99% of files are not requested.

Sure but X doesn’t indicate it being a hospital or any other institution that would have people confused. Its just a letter.

To me, a random letter is pretty confusing, but it seems I might be in the minority.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com