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Trademarks and their limitsTrademarks and their limitsPosted Feb 6, 2013 6:20 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)In reply to: Trademarks and their limits by onlooker_905 Parent article: Trademarks and their limits
That's fine, trademarks are limited in scope so it's possible to have a trademarked "Linux" window cleaner _and_ an operating system.
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Trademarks and their limits Posted Feb 6, 2013 9:15 UTC (Wed) by jezuch (subscriber, #52988) [Link]
> That's fine, trademarks are limited in scope
One famous example was the name "VAX" which was a brand of vacuum cleaners - and computers, of course. There was a lawsuit, I think, and the court said that confusion of large computing machinery with household appliance is unlikely, so there is no infringement. One other result of that is a marketing slogan "nothing sucks like the VAX" applied to the computer ;)
Trademarks and their limits Posted Feb 6, 2013 9:38 UTC (Wed) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] Actually the marketing slogan used to be »Nothing sucks like an Electrolux« (which rhymes better). Electrolux and VAX are competing vacuum cleaner brands.
Trademarks and their limits Posted Feb 7, 2013 8:19 UTC (Thu) by Cato (subscriber, #7643) [Link]
The use of "sucks" in that Electrolux ad campaign was only in the UK during the early 1990s (source: http://adland.tv/content/nothing-sucks-ad-myth) - at least at that time, "sucks" was not widely used with a pejorative meaning, and it wasn't run in the US.
These days, UKians are somewhat Internet-savvy and have absorbed many US meanings such as this one. Although it seems the Oxford English Dictionary has much earlier UK usages, but they were not so common: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=583268
This has been a PedantryForFun announcement...
Trademarks and their limits Posted Feb 7, 2013 10:27 UTC (Thu) by branden (subscriber, #7029) [Link]
I counter your pedantry.
As early as 1987, the Stanley Kubrick film _Full Metal Jacket_ was promoted with a poster which featured in prominent type:
IN VIETNAM
Kubrick had been a resident of the U.K. for over 15 years at that point and was infamously involved in every aspect of his films' production, marketing/promotion, and distribution.
If an old fuddy-duddy like Kubrick could be persuaded of the utility of this slang by 1987, it surely must have had currency in the U.K. by the 1990s.
You sure that Electrolux ad campaign wasn't a bit of sardonicism?
Trademarks and their limits Posted Feb 7, 2013 10:39 UTC (Thu) by Cato (subscriber, #7643) [Link]
Well, Full Metal Jacket was a film about US soldiers set in Vietnam, so it's not so surprising it used American slang in the poster. Doesn't really prove it either way.
I really don't think Electrolux would have paid for a poster campaign designed to say it was crap...
Trademarks and their limits Posted Feb 7, 2013 10:48 UTC (Thu) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] Sarcastic self-deprecation in advertising is not, in fact, unheard of.
Trademarks and their limits Posted Feb 7, 2013 10:54 UTC (Thu) by branden (subscriber, #7029) [Link]
...particularly when said self-deprecating sardonicism is tucked behind one fork of a double entendre.
Trademarks and their limits Posted Feb 7, 2013 17:43 UTC (Thu) by hpa (subscriber, #48575) [Link]
It was very much intended (this is pretty well documented by now.) Not only that, but it was apparently quite successful in getting people to remember the otherwise fairly heavyweight brand name.
Trademarks and their limits Posted Feb 8, 2013 4:00 UTC (Fri) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]
Avis had "We try harder [because we're not first]" for a while. I think they might have changed it by now because it seems that people figured "and it's still not enough to make you first".
Trademarks and their limits Posted Feb 6, 2013 9:41 UTC (Wed) by neilbrown (subscriber, #359) [Link]
> the court said that confusion of large computing machinery with household appliance is unlikely
I still remember the VAX-750 with those large disk drives (they must have held hundreds of megabytes!) and the day some joker placed a box of "Drive" brand laundry detergent on one of them. I'd say that from a distance it was easy to confuse an RP06 disk drive with a washing machine. Maybe not a vacuum cleaner, but certainly a house-hold appliance.
Trademarks and their limits Posted Feb 6, 2013 17:07 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] I have seen plenty of examples, so many that I have thought about starting a gallery: Novell coffee, UNIX and Firefox fire extinguishers come to mind.
Trademarks and their limits Posted Feb 14, 2013 0:10 UTC (Thu) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]
Linux washing powder ...
Cheers,
Trademarks and their limits Posted Feb 6, 2013 10:15 UTC (Wed) by Seegras (subscriber, #20463) [Link]
Actually, there's Linux:
http://www.sbyte.de/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/10/06... Here's Unix http://www.myhappening.com/photos/barcelona/041220/ps/ima... And of course Microsoft: http://www.linenorders.com/mito.html
Trademarks and their limits Posted Feb 6, 2013 23:15 UTC (Wed) by roman (subscriber, #24157) [Link]
http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/otherunix.html
And... I have somewhere a photocopy of a label from "Unix Porto" (port wine).
Trademarks and their limits Posted Feb 21, 2013 19:10 UTC (Thu) by JanC_ (guest, #34940) [Link]
And there is Ubuntu Cola, of course.
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