Apple likes our name and so do we
healthkit.com
healthkit.com
HealthKit is not, however, a name that consumers will ever actually come across in using their device. Apple's own app on top of HealthKit is simply called "Health", and I highly doubt the string "HealthKit" appears anywhere in that app's UI.
Its a seperate point to say its a 'feature' not a product and thus is not actually sold to anyone (and thus distinct).
Either way, in Australia, both parties would apply under Classes 9 and 44 which covers all computer software and medical services respectively. It's likely that Apple will win on class 9 as "Kit" is far better known in the software community than "HealthKit.com"; and arguably 44 too, depending on Healthkit.com's traction in the medical field.
It's unlikely that Apple's HealthKit and HealthKit's HealthKit would cause confusion in the market - but it makes a silly story to say that Apple's Health (which may have overlapping functionality with the preexisting HealthKit).
Gotta love the media.
Though I'm curious to hear from someone with more legal knowledge than me: would the fact that there's very little chance of collision between these names protect either party from legal repercussions?
Naturally, this same reasoning can be used to challenge the use of the same trademark in a different domain, something clearly accepted by law.
It's one thing to have theoretically defensible IP, and other thing entirely to actually be able to.
Assuming equal resources backing the legal teams, it would probably be sufficient that they are both forms of software, as all software trademarks are lumped together in the single category. There might be some sort of passing off action one way or another but it would be more likely to come from Apple than HealthKit.
There seems to be overlap between the Health app and Healthkit.com which I suppose is the real issue. Hard to tell if Healthkit truly got sherlocked though, because I can't tell what they do from their website past management software.
Moreover it is a piece of software and falls within the same trade mark class (different people can trade mark the same word in different classes of business).
There is a clear conflict with the existing brand, that is likely to cause confusing and diminish the untility of the existing brand. Apple should change the name.
It was certainly well known by Apple that healthkit.com was already registered and in use by a company already working on a very similar product.
As for copyright, it does not apply to names: What is not protected by copyright? ... Names, Titles, Short Phrases, or Expressions [2]
Finally, Apple seems to think it's easier asking for forgiveness than permission when it comes to naming products [3]
[1] http://www.quora.com/Trademarks/If-someone-has-a-company-nam...
[2] http://www.legalzoom.com/intellectual-property-rights/copyri...
[3] http://www.itnews.com.au/News/71042,cisco-expects-deal-with-...
They filed the trademarks some months ago: http://www.macrumors.com/2014/05/30/healthbook-healthkit-tra...
I don't think Apple is too concerned. If HealthKit had filed for trademarks internationally then they'd have a leg to stand on.
Instead they're left moaning about how Apple has named some technology, not a packaged product per-se, with a name similar to their company.
Apple's legal team was no doubt aware of HealthKit, had done some analysis, and decided that there was no real issue. HealthKit can do their thing in Australia.
A few years ago DC Comics decided to sue DC Shoes over their logo which, like DC Comics logo at the time, used the letters DC and a star.
Turns out DC hadn't trademarked the logo, despite having used it (and variants) for decades so they lost.
DC Shoes HAD trademarked it and successfully counter sued and DC Comics, despite having used a similar logo for a lot longer, were forced to pay DC Shoes for the rights (at least until they ultimately changed their logo).
> But not only HealthKit, The whole 'Kit naming scheme
Apple's been using the "kit" naming convention for a much longer time (AppKit, IOKit, WebKit)--I think it originates in NeXTSTEP, if not earlier.
"HealthKit", in the context of both healthkit.com and the dev kit describes the intend purpose of the IP. The startup seems to produce a software "kit" for health practitioners and the Apple version is obviously a dev kit that deals with the new health app.
Any trademark that describes intended purpose is called a 'descriptive mark' (lawyers are an imaginative bunch) and are generally really hard to protect. You need to show evidence of market use, and for lack of a better word, traction. Apple actually seem to have the stronger argument here: MapKit, GameKit, UIKit etc. have been used for ages and are recognised in the software community as being associated with Apple. This would be categorised as a software trademark and I'm not sure that the startup can establish a strong argument that they've a) established their brand in the software market and that b) they should be able to exclude Apple to prevent confusion. This is consistent with both Aus and US law to my knowledge, and successfully establishing themselves in the Australian market, or filing a trademark here won't bind the US anyway.
Bottom line, the more generic and descriptive your name (in context), the harder it will be to successfully defend it. Owning a .com doesn't count for much, if anything (even trying to register a generic descriptive word + .com - mattress.com was registered unsuccessfully IIRC). You need to get eyeballs on it and sell stuff to win this with a common law/equitable trademark. Considering I hadn't heard of HealthKit.com until this happened they might struggle with this.
If you're a founder and you want to protect your name, pick a name that is something arbitrary or suggestive. Healthkit.com's claims would be much stronger if it was named Potato or Voozle and Apple used the same name for a dev kit. It makes it far harder to communicate your product quickly but thats the tradeoff. Names that invoke your product through onomatopoeia, like 'Twitter' strike a good balance between effective communication and defensibility. They're bloody hard to come up with though.
Hopefully, HealthKit.com use this as an opportunity to get their message out to their target audience, they're getting an audience on hacker news but its doctors they should be going for.
As an aside, it's interesting to see how much of the media is confusing the HealthKit dev kit with the Health app. Helps with the story I guess.
On the about us page there isn't any buttons at all, so you can't read all the text.
I am...disappoint.
What a horrible decision.
There is nothing odd in some new iOS frameworks following a similar convention.
If anything, I think Apple's new framework is going to generate a lot of marketing/PR value for the company. I think they realize this :)
http://www.news.com.au/finance/small-business/apple-swallows...
Yep, looks devastated.
angular.com cocoa.com node.com flask.com bootstrap.com backbone.com
etc.
If you make up some new word Exxon etc. then maybe.
For slapping two common words together there have to be sensible limits on everyone else being prohibited. If you own things like onetwo.com great that may well be a reason for someone else to be dissuaded from naming a consumer product that because they want an easy to remember domain.
Thinking all uses of HealthKit are bad seems more to me like Facebook thinking anyone using "book" prefaced by something else is doing wrong - which I think is silly.
I would be amazed if there are not many previous uses of health kit - just removing the space hardly seems an amazing transformation to me.
I think that hilarity of above mentioned action still remains unbeaten, however, as I see, Apple is trying very, very hard.
Here Apple's gone ahead and released an API (product?) with the same name as an existing company. They're not going after the company legally. Atleast, not yet.
But perhaps that comes after Apple's healthkit is more well known than the existing HealthKit.
I wondered at the time when Apple would sue actual apples. http://newstechnica.com/2009/10/05/apple-inc-sues-apples-for...
Steve
Sent from my iPhone
Without been specific to Apple, it's a common practice of large multinational companies to perform international searches for registered and unregistered trademarks as well as any common usage of the marks they are interested in using. If any potential registrations, or strong claims on the mark, are found in the same field of business a specialist will probably be contracted to perform a more in depth investigation.
I would be surprised if Apple had not taken the time to assess your claims on the HealthKit mark. I can only guess that they did and decided that there was either: a) no conflict between your businesses and hence use of the mark - in which case you should be happy, yet careful not infringe on Apple's usage (keep your eye out for a trademark registration very soon). b) they don't think you have any strong rights on the mark and chose to use it.
It may be fun to ask around the office and see if anybody remembers been contacted with out of the ordinary questions regarding the length of your company's operations and asking questions about the HealthKit domain/name in general.
[1] http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/mac/30-years-mac-how-macintos...
If I use a trademark, say Ziglou, can I expect to have a right to every domain names with Ziglou?
Ziglou.com, Ziglou.net, Ziglou.org, Ziglou.some-new-top-level-name...
Can I expect to also have right to a top domain? Ziglou.ziglou?
Inversely, can one expect to have an established trademark just because of a domain name? In this case, HealthKit?
When you register a trademark, you do it for a specific region (country, EU...) and for a particular purpose (industry). In principle you could try to trademark a name everywhere in the world for every purpose imaginable, but it would be very very hard since any owner of an existing trademark can object if they think there is a chance of your name causing confusion with theirs and the resolution process can take time and be ultimately unsuccessful for you. So nobody actually does that.
Strength of a trademark really lies in both a) being registered and b) being actively used (first by you, but also by others). I think it is more useful to think of a domain as a digital equivalent of a sign hanged above the shop entrance. I think it affords you roughly the same level of protection.
IANAL, but I have registered a trademark years ago and had at that time spent some effort in getting acquainted with laws. They may have changed since.
Move along, nothing to see here.