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Comment by wodenokoto | Hacker News Reader

FileZilla is one of those examples that makes me want overly stringent trademark laws. To me the name implies it’s part of the Mozilla family and it is neither in ownership nor in spirit and it makes me irrationally angry

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zilla isn't a word reserved to Mozilla, there are other thing using this word, like godzilla, where mozilla name came from.

Did Mozilla really came from Godzilla? I've always thought it was short form of 'Mosaic killa' (Mosaic killer). Original code of NSCA Mosaic was licensed by Microsoft Corp from Spyglass, Inc. (and so become a part of first version of Internet Explorer); while team which had written this code (Marc Andreessen et al) got venture funding from James Clark et al in 1994 to form Netscape Communications Corp and basically rewrite the browser from scratch. I.e. initial goal of that team was to kill NSCA Mosaic, their previous creation, hence the name.

I have a vague recollection of a Netscape Navigator README file on Linux that said this:

"Remember, it's spelled N-E-T-S-C-A-P-E but it's pronounced: Mozilla, the Mosaic Killer Godzilla".

some sources: http://fredericiana.com/2007/04/15/mosaic-killer/

> it was internally named Mozilla (Mosaic-Killer, Godzilla) by Jamie Zawinski

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

> Mozilla Foundation – from the name of the web browser that preceded Netscape Navigator. When Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape, created a browser to replace the Mosaic browser, it was internally named Mozilla (Mosaic-Killer, Godzilla) by Jamie Zawinski.[110]

Similar enough intellectual properties can lead to legal trouble if their domain overlap.

That's not how trademark law works. Nobody has words "reserved to them", the question is whether or not your average person could reasonably believe they are related to Mozilla.

I know. That’s why I said irrationally angry and not rationally angry.

It might be hard to defend that as a unique enough trademark. Not impossible if you can afford the sort of lawyers that get words like “windows” and “apple” protected, but not easy. -zilla was a fairly common suffix for various things including, but not limited to, software when the company took on the name. I expect the majority of people hearing the name filezilla will think of Gozilla far ahead of Mozilla and assume the name comes from there rather than implying a link to the company (a lot of non-techies might not even know/care that Firefox comes from a company call Mozilla) so the chance of meaningful conclusion would take quite some arguing for.

Protections that would apply to -zilla as you suggest could be used for a lot else by other corporates, so be careful what you wish for there.

On the one had yes, it would be nice to avoid that sort of association-blurring.

But on the other, if we're calling ownership over the '-zilla' suffix then a certain giant monster might take precedent.

As long as it is not confuseable it is not trademark infringement. You are free to start a Pharmacy named McDonalds, but not Walmart's Pharma.

On other hand is there other than Bugzilla and Chatzilla(dead) that follow that scheme?

Bugzilla actually came out of Mozilla so that would be safe.

Godzilla may want a word too.

Not to say that I agree with the transparent, but: Trademarks only apply where there might be confusion. If I made a very large radioactive ape called Gozilla, it would most certainly infringe on a (hypothetical?) Godzilla trademark.

But as long as there is low risk of confusion it is not infringement. I could probably start a lepidopterist consulting firm named Amazon.

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