Is it OK to name our app generically? We're creating an app and want to name it generically, like Calendar. Calendar is already trademarked for alcoholic beverages except beers. We want to make sure we're doing our due diligence in choosing a name. What else should we consider beyond: Corporate Entity Names App Store Names Trademarks Internet Domain Names Social Media Usernames
I am answering primarily with regard to the U.S. Lanham Act (15 U.S.C. § 1501 et seq.) and state trademark laws in the U.S., but except as noted, these concepts are widely honored internationally in trademark law. As a general rule, generic names cannot be trademarked. Thus, you can't trademark "liquor store" for a liquor store, or "Calendar" for a calendar, but you might be able to trademark "liquor store' for a copying machine line, or "Calendar" for a perfume. Sometimes a trademark can be obtained for a stylized logo incorporating a generic name (e.g. "liquor store" in bold pink 48 point comic-sans), but to be valid, the trademark must disclaim any assertion of rights in the mere genetic words themselves. Also, sometimes a trademark that is descriptive but not truly generic, like "Palisade Red" for red wine made in Palisade, Colorado (as opposed to the truly generic name "red wine"), can acquire what is known as a "secondary meaning" through exclusive use over a period of time while registered with the Patent and Trademark Office, without contest from anyone else. If it meets these requirement it can win an entitlement to trademark protection. But, the nuances of this particular route to trademark protection are particular to U.S. Lanham Act (which is the name of the federal trademark law in the U.S.). Domain names and entity names in a particular jurisdiction are somewhat different. While it is possible for two competing products or firms to share a generic name, it is not possible for two owners to have precisely the same domain name or precisely the same entity name in the same jurisdiction, even if the firms seeking the same name sell completely dissimilar types of products. For example, there can only be one: "Calendar.com" domain name, even if one company uses the name "Calendar" to sell calendars and the other company uses the name "Calendar" to sell perfume. In those cases, however, it is relatively straightforward to determine what names are and are not taken.
The standard for fair use of trademarks is as follows: (1) the product or service in question is not readily identifiable without use of the trademark (2) only so much of the mark as is reasonably necessary to identify the product or service is used (3) use of the mark does not suggest sponsorship or endorsement by the trademark owner. I think you might run into a problem with (1). In other words the trademark owner would argue that you could have used fake trademarks to satisfy your product description needs, so you are using their trademark unnecessarily.
united-states Names and short phrases are not subject to copyright protection. A list of such phrases is probably not protectable either. Game mechanics are not protectable either. While short phrases can be protected as trademarks, they can be so protected only if they are used to identify a product or service, or to advertise that product or service. Terms used within the game are not normally subject to trademark protection. Even if such a term did have trademark protection, using it within the game would not be using it &quot;in commerce&quot; or &quot;in trade&quot;, that is to identify or market the game. A brand name, a slogan, or a logo are typical trademarks, the name of a thing within the product is not. In short, a list of character classes would not, in the US at least, infringe copyright or trademark protections on another game.
If your app is published under US law, then the DMCA would apply, just as if it was a web site. The DMCA doesn't say anything about what particular technology the distributor is using. TO be protected by by the DMCA's &quot;safe harbor&quot; provision, you will need to include a notice in your app that you accept takedowns, and provide an address or method by which they can be sent, and an agent who will receive them. (You can be your own agent if you choose.) When and if you recieve a take down notice, you must check if it is valid in form. According to this Wikipedia article, a takedown notice must include: (i) A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed. (ii) Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site. (iii) Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material. (iv) Information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact the complaining party, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail address at which the complaining party may be contacted. (v) A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law. (vi) A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed. (See the actual text of the relevant section of the law.) If you receive (through your designated agent) a valid takedown notice, you must promptly remove the content and notify the poster (or you can instruct to poster to remove it, but you must do so yourself if the poster does not). If the poster then files a valid counter notice (see the linked sources above) with your agent, you must notify the sender of the original notice, and if the sender does not notify you of a copyright suit filed within 10-14 days, you must restore the content. Provided that these rules are complied with, the host gets a 'safe harbor&quot; and cannot be sued for copyright infringement, nor for the act of taking down the content. I believe that the agent must be registered with the US copyright office. The courts have not ruled on just how quickly an ISP or other host must react to the takedown notice. It must be &quot;expeditious&quot;. Moreover, Under the DMCA (i) 1) (a) The host must have, post, and enforce a policy denying access to repeat infringers, or lose safe harbor protection. The text of the provision is: (i) Conditions for Eligibility. -(1)Accommodation of technology. —The limitations on liability established by this section shall apply to a service provider only if the service provider— --(A) has adopted and reasonably implemented, and informs subscribers and account holders of the service provider’s system or network of, a policy that provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances of subscribers and account holders of the service provider’s system or network who are repeat infringers;
The use of the icon must be specific to the function of the icon within the Microsoft software. ... is pretty specific. What you have described isn't so it is not permitted by the licence.
Names cannot be copyrighted at all, in any country. They can, however, be protected as trademarks. The general idea is that if one uses a name to identify a product or service, or a creator of products or services, others cannot use the same or a similar name to identify their products or services in such a way that a reasonable person might be confused into thinking that the two came from the same source, or one was endorsed or approved by the other. Trademarks are limited in scope to a particular country, A name that is protected in Canada, say, will not be protected in the US unless steps have been taken to protect it there. In some countries a trademark must be officially registered to get any protection, In others, such as the United States, merely using the mark can give a degree of protection, although registration give more protection. Each country maintains a trademark registry which can be searched for existing marks. There are search firms that will do such searches for a client, and also search for marks in use but not registered, for a fee. Trademark protection is generally restricted by the type of product or service involved. An anti-virus program, say, called &quot;Guard dog&quot; would probably not interfere with a fantasy game called &quot;Guardog&quot;. A private security service of the same name would pretty surely not interfere. The range of protection depends on how widely known the product is, but &quot;software related&quot; is a very wide area, and except for famous marks, a mark protected in connection with one area of software will not be protected in a very different area of software. Names that a purely invented, such as Kodak, are more strongly protected than descriptive marks such as &quot;Best Pizza&quot; Particularly famous names such as &quot;Microsoft&quot; get additional protection even outside their usual areas, so &quot;Microsoft Pizza&quot; might be a problem. Logos and other graphic marks can also be protected as trademarks, but that is not what the question asked about. The styling of a trademark, such as a particular font, choice of colors, and so on, can also be protected. This is called &quot;trade dress&quot;. A disclaimer making it clear that a somewhat similar name is not related, and the is no affiliation can help avoid avoid an infringement suit. For example: Pear brand kites are in no way associated with, sponsored or approved by the makers of Pear smartphones. On this site we cannot give specific legal advise, so we cannot evaluate whether a specific proposed trademark would or would not infringe an existing mark. It might be well to consult an attorney with trademark experiences before finally choosing a name and doing marketing under it.
I don't think so. While JSON stands for &quot;JavaScript Object Notation&quot;, it doesn't say that. So the term &quot;JSON&quot; isn't infringing on a trademark for &quot;JavaScript&quot;. To sue somebody because of an alleged trademark infringement, one needs to prove that the offender abused a trade name of the suing company in a way to make the public believe the offending company was related to the suing company. Nobody is even trying that by just using a file format. The file structure itself was developed as an open standard, so they can't claim any rights on that. I have not heard about a company claiming rights in file structures recently, because the data is considered the property of the user, not of the company that wrote the program it was created with. And users are often no longer accepting file formats that can only be read by a specific (expensive) application from a particular company. They want to be flexible to change their vendor and keep the data.
Some people make the Kft. to LLC translation that you suggest and it would probably not be illegal to do so if other text did not imply that it was anything other than a Hungarian entity. From a practical perspective, the best solution is to spell out the company type in Hungarian, possibly in a footnote. For example, suppose that your company is called &quot;Magyar Delponeous&quot; (because it is easier to explain by example). You could say &quot;Magyar Delphoneous*&quot; or &quot;Magyar Delphoneous, Kft.*&quot; in the body text, with a footnote at the bottom of a page that says following an asterisks that: &quot;The company is a Hungarian Kft. (korlátolt felelősségű társaság), a non-stock business form similar to a U.S. limited liability company or a German GmbH&quot;. It would also be proper to say &quot;Magyar Delponeous, a Hungarian limited liability company&quot; in unabbreviated form, because the most common translation of &quot;korlátolt felelősségű társaság&quot; is &quot;limited liability company&quot;. But, I would disfavor using the form &quot;Magyar Delphoneous, LLC&quot; because it could implicitly suggest a non-Hungarian place of entity formation where the abbreviation LLC is used, and avoiding any implication of being misleading is best. KFC is not the common or correct abbreviation for this form of entity.