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Comment by post-it | Hacker News Reader

I don't believe in intellectual property, but to the extent that we live in a world where IP exists, the original game as described is pretty clearly using IKEA's trade dress.

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I too am skeptical of government-granted intellectual monopolies, as Richard Stallman correctly names them. Trademarks are the least offensive of them because they expire relatively quickly and are designed to prevent genuine consumer confusion. Trade dress rules help prevent consumers from unwittingly buying products from Company A while thinking it's Company B.

This video game creates zero risk that a consumer will buy furniture from the wrong store, so trade dress should be inapplicable. IKEA would likely even lose in court. But as the article points out: legal proceedings ... get really expensive.

This move was pure bullying by IKEA lawyers.

Excellent comment, I just learned something. +1

It's still bad when mega-corporations attack small guy. Its certainly worth to shame companies for doing this kind of stuff.

And almost as comical as Nintendo buying rights to a porn movie to prevent their distribution:

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

> It's still bad when mega-corporations attack small guy.

No, actually, we decide things based on the law, not based on which side you like more.

No, the way we as a society react informs what laws should exist, not the other way around.

Eh, I kinda get it. For a brief time, the Mario pipes were more associated with Flappy Bird than with Mario itself. That was fine, and the game died out quickly, but if the pipes became associated with Mario's cock, or if the IKEA layout became associated with a bloodbath pvp game, those associations could easily overtake the original meanings in popular culture, and the original brands would never be the same.

I think that would be a fair price to pay for freeing our society from the shackles of pretending you can own an idea, but I get where these executives are coming from.

people underestimated the effect of jokes / stigma of media to a brand. There is non-zero chance that adults will associate the game with ikea brand and harm the brand image.

And bullying the little guys also harms their brand image, or at least should.

ALDI/Lidl copy every big brand under the sun. They've been litigated against, but they get away with it way more often than they lose. Many cases fail to prove that consumers were misled, and (I find this incredible) one of the strongest defenses is that store has a strong reputation for brand imitation, so there is in fact no confusion. People go to Lidl to buy Neos, knowing full well they're not Oreos. It's also surprising that other supermarkets get away with it when they sell the copycat product next to the original.

If you could afford lawyers, you could definitely get away with that game, but it's easier for IKEA to stomp you.

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