Hacker News Reader

Comment by clickety_clack | Hacker News Reader

I’d love to hear an IP lawyer weigh in on this, because I’ve never heard of this kind of thing before. It doesn’t seem correct that you can use trademark alone like this to extend beyond the actual word used in the trademark. Maybe it’s from licensing or something, ie maybe if a product uses the actual git product, then the git license means you can’t use the name as part of a word.

View on HN

thank you both for chiming in.

i will be honest and say that we didn't do our due diligence here (we simply assumed that it would be okay to do so, given the existence of GitHub, GitLab, GitKraken, GitButler, and so forth).

it does look like from digging in: https://public-inbox.org/git/20170202022655.2jwvudhvo4hmueaw...

that portmanteaus are prohibited by the policy that the Git PLC enforces, which as Jeff notes in his email above, does grant incumbent advantages to grandfathered names (e.g., GitHub, GitLab).

we'll reach out to the conservancy, ask for explicit permission, and if not, rebrand.

In my opinion (which may be worth little), by using "git" in your product's name today you are also locking onto that technology. So if an another or better VCS comes along (like jj) that you want to embrace it could be harder. (Kind of like how Bitbucket betted wrongly on hg, then later added and switched to git).

Trademark law is ridiculously slanted in favour of existing rightsholders. The most famous example I know of is "McSleep Inn", which was sued by McDonalds and forced to change their name. I think that ruling was complete bullshit, because Mc is so generic and usually a prime factor of trademark law is whether the businesses operate in similar domains, but it goes to show how broad the protections can be. Something like "GitFoo", which is explicitly being used specifically on a site for hosting Git repositories, doesn't stand a chance in hell, and rightfully so because this is actually trying to take advantage of Git's name to market their product.

They might have been sued, but did they change the name just to settle out of court? McDonald’s failed to maintain the trademark on “Big Mac” in Europe when it actually went to a court room https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/jun/05/big...

They did not settle, hence my usage of the wording "ruling" and "forced to change".

> For the reasons given the Court finds and concludes that (1) McDonald's is entitled to enforce its family of marks that are characterized by the combination of the prefix "Mc" with a generic word; (2) the name McSleep Inn is likely to cause an appreciable number of the public to be confused by believing that McSleep Inn is sponsored, associated, affiliated, connected, or endorsed by McDonald's; and (3) the adoption and use by Quality International of the name McSleep Inn was a deliberate attempt to benefit by the good will and reputation of McDonald's. Therefore, the Court will find trademark infringement, unfair competition, and dilution under the Illinois statute (Ill.Rev.Stat. Ch. 140, § 22).

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/6...

I suppose it's not surprising that Europe is less favorable to frivolous trademark claims made by American corporations than America is.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com