As amusing as it is to see Elon fail, letters like "X" shoud not be trademarkable. Just one indicator that we're truly reaching capitalist extremism levels of insanity.
this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
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Also, how the hell could Microsoft get a patent for X in 2003 when X has been around since 1984, and is pretty much a direct competitor? This makes no sense at all.
Trademarks can apply to different areas. In this case, Microsoft's trademark is for services related to online chat, not for something like a window manager.
Makes sense I guess. Somehow also makes the trademark even more absurd.
Reminds me a little of Apple v. Apple Records, and how Apple promised never too use their brand to enter into the music industry (like they later did with iTunes anyway).
In 1991, Apple Computer made an agreement to pay Apple Records $26 million in exchange for letting Apple Computer use the "Apple" trademark for music. But that was long before iTunes, they wanted the Apple trademark for their computer chimes. Apple Records agreed to let Apple Computer use the Apple trademark for music as long as it did not "package, sell or distribute physical music materials."
Much later, iTunes was developed and Apple Records sued Apple Computer. Eventually a judge sided with Apple Computer, pointing out that iTunes did not package, sell or distribute physical music materials. Thus, Apple Records couldn't get another bite of that Apple....
The law is a weapon of the rich. You don't have to be right, you just have to be able to afford out-lawyering your competition. Patents are especially revolting.
Of course, my question was rhetorical. I guess it didn't come out so clearly considering it's also, at least in theory, a damned good question.
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How is Xorg a "direct competitor" to Microsoft? Especially Microsoft's trademark to X in the gaming market where they own the Xbox and Xorg doesn't participate at all?
Trademarks protect consumers by preventing fraud and misleading naming. It makes perfect sense that Microsoft owns X in the given market space due to the enormous prevalence of Xbox. Their first console was literally X-shaped and it would be bad for consumers for anyone to be able to make the "X-station" or "X-cube" or some such.
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Trademarks only cover very significant uses. Microsoft can (and apparently did) trademark X in connection to the Xbox, so competitors can't make a game console called an XStation or PlayStation X, but people not making video game consoles aren't affected.
[Edit: Man, Lemmy is weird. I deleted this comment right after posting it because I thought it was redundant. I only undeleted it because I saw it was the top-rated comment in its sub-thread.]
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Aside from Microsoft and apparently Facebook, there's also X the classic Unix display protocol, aka X11.
There’s also Apple’s OS X, which was recently renamed to macos but which might have some remaining legal basis.
Also X (video game series).
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“You can’t own letters, man” -Elon, probably
“But I own the website! That’s no fair!”
It's not the letter x it's a Unicode symbol that looks like the letter x.
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He already lost that fight to Mercedes for the letter E.
"I can, but that's because I'm not a penniless hippie." Also Elon, probably
Basically, it's a legal minefield that is almost indefensible. Anyone want to make a Mastodom X Window client with a web access version of it?
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I’m glad we’re currently on a good news streak. Those climate change articles were weighing on me.
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How does both meta and microsoft own the rights to "X"
Trademarks are very narrow. From my quick search Microsoft has 'X' marks in relation to Excel and Xbox.
Meta's trademarks actually has the class, 'Online social networking services,' that will overlap with Twitter's new name.
From what I understand, MS owns it in regards gaming, and Meta owns it in regards to social media.
Probably in different industries. I saw the MS patent is for game related stuff. I would assume metas is for social media stuff, or some other field they're involved in.
Trademark, not patent. I wouldn't normally correct you but there seems to be a whole lot of misunderstanding in this thread about the categories of intellectual property.
I was just about to ask that myself.
i thought it was google tryin to copyright the alphabet
Pretty sure Google owns that.
I thought it was nigh impossible to trademark a letter?
I saw a tweet from the founder of xe.com who literally used the same logo in the 90s and he discussed the challenges in globally trademarking a single letter.
Both aspects were giant cans of worms for El Musky.
What about the Malcolm X Estate, do they have a say in this?
The design is also a unicode character.
I want Musk to lose but I hate the idea of a single letter being copyright.
Trademark, not copyright. It means that you can't make something and call it "X" if there's any chance that your "X" and their "X" might get mixed up. Google ran into this same problem when they created "Alphabet" - it was already a trademark of some German car manufacturer (probably Audi or BMW), but the court ruled that "Alphabet the car company" and "Alphabet the online services company" are far enough apart that the average user probably won't confuse one for the other (although the Dove soap and Dove chocolate makes me doubt it). Twitter and Microsoft both offer online services. It might be enough of an overlap to constitute a trademark violation.
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Copyright and trademarks are different things. In this case it looks like it applies mainly to the Xbox "X" logo like is seen on this (hilarious) page of the filing and is only for things related to messaging and gaming, so it's not as broad as it sounds. Based on a cursory look at Google results from before July 1st, I can't find any examples of Microsoft actually suing anyone for using the letter X, either.
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So does that make Elon Musk an X-Offender?
The X-box. X.org, the X files... and now, simply... X.
Folks really love the X letter for some reason.
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Ah, excellent. I've been waiting for the IP fallout from this dumpster fire... Here we go 😊
Why does his face remind me of the Phantom of the Opera? Maybe there will be an unfortunate chandelier falling incident.
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Yeah definitely don’t need to check that out beforehand
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