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Comment by Natsu | Hacker News Reader

They chose "Saga" knowing that it had a long history of use in a great many games that are very well known to gamers, so that's something they should have to live with. Stealing (i.e. actually depriving others of) the use of parts of language is not inherently reasonable to me.

Also, what ever happened to trademarks? I thought they were defined as adjectives and 'Saga' is clearly a noun in every use I've seen....

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A trademark is any distinguishing mark that indicates a product comes from you. The whole idea ("trade mark") is that it gives you a way to let people know which products are yours and which are competitors / unrelated / what have you, or, viewed from the mirror perspective, to let customers in the market know that they're buying what they think they're buying. That's why a central test of trademark violation is whether a customer would be likely to be confused between two marks.

They can be anything at all, such as entire phrases ("made from the best stuff on earth"), symbols (like the Apple apple), or particular colors, like the distinctive blue that Mauna Loa uses in their macadamia nut packaging (or the distinctive blue that Tiffany's uses in theirs!).

Yeah, but they're supposed to be used as an identifier and the fact that they don't (and haven't, to my knoweldge) ever used it as an adjective only underscores the fact that it does nothing whatsoever to distinguish them.

While I could see Candy X Saga being marginally distinctive, I associate 'Candy' and 'Saga' very strongly with completely different makers and I believe that I am by no means alone. For me, 'Candy Land' comes first for 'Candy' and 'Saga' goes to the whole 'SaGa' RPG series.

Also, I don't like word thieves trying to steal language out from under us. Here, the usage of 'thief' being justified by the fact that they are attempting to deprive us of the use of the word through dodgy legal practices.

Did you mean to reply to someone else?

No. I'm pointing out how, in spite of that, I believe this mark as applied for is not distinctive in the least and to me creates confusion with the marks of people who used them in commerce first.

A Trademark is only granted for a narrow field of use. So the headline assertion that King want to monopilize the word "Candy" is wide of the mark. As thaumasiotes states, the purpose is to protect consumers by rogue companies passing off their products in an attempt to deceive. All trademark applications are inspected before grant, that inspection being focussed on what is right for the average consumer, not for the company making the application, nor its competitors. In this case, imho, the trademark is legitimate. A quick scan of many of the objectioners shows that they are clearly aiming to deceive the average consumer.

Well, all of my examples are for games which is quite narrow. Are they not claiming 'games' as one of their categories?

> Also, what ever happened to trademarks? I thought they were defined as adjectives

Sorry? Apple is an adjective?

> Sorry? Apple is an adjective?

For purposes of a trademark, actually, yes. From Apple's own site [1], "Trademarks are adjectives, and should not be made into verbs or made plural or possessive." In addition, Apple specifies a list of suggested generic terms for each trademark. Under Guidelines for Using Apple Trademarks and Copyrights, some concrete examples are given [2]: "Correct: I bought two Macintosh computers." but "Not Correct: I bought two Macintoshes."

[1] https://www.apple.com/legal/intellectual-property/trademark/...

[2] https://www.apple.com/legal/intellectual-property/guidelines...

This is incorrect in multiple ways.

- Apple says this because it doesn't want its trademarks to become common words ineligible for trademark protection (like what happened to xerox and kleenex). But it can't stop people from referring to things however they please; this is nothing more than a statement of how Apple wishes the world would work.

- If I say "I bought two Apple computers", Apple is still a noun, not an adjective.

> But it can't stop people from referring to things however they please

Even if they send C&D notes over improper usage?

Yes, if you post "I bought two Macintoshes today" to your blog or write it in a commercial article or anything of the kind, Apple has no authority to prevent that (and a trademark likewise does not apply to such behavior). Their only authority is to stop you from using their mark on your unaffiliated products.

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