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Godzilla Getting Ready to Stomp Mozilla?
mrBlond writes: "Doing the rounds: Seems like Toho [jp], 'the owner of all rights in and to the trademark and service mark GODZILLA [jp]
and the GODZILLA characters,' is coming down on Davezilla for use of 'zilla' in his domain name and his dragon logo, to set a precedent before attacking Mozilla."
...but the term "Mozilla" has been associated with Netscape for a long, long time, even before the open source project. In fact, you're likely to see "Mozilla" in most user agent strings, even from non-Netscape browsers.
pooptruck
By their claim, Microsoft would be able to file suit against Microtek, Micron, Micromedia, Microware, ... I can see where there is an argument against the reptilian logo, but to parse letters in a non-profit project's title goes too far.
Mozilla's been around for what, about 4 years? If this company sat around for that long without defending their trademark, too bad! Any rational, impartial judge (if they exist) would throw this out of court.
I feel so sorry for this poor company. Having one of their trademarks lightly referenced in the context of the open source vs. Microsoft battle. Thus keeping the mark in front of not only geeks, but a fair amount of the mainstream as well. Thereby increasing interest in their Godzilla properties, and generally entrenching the -zilla suffix in the not only english, but other languages as well.
It must be terrible for them, all that free publicity.
Of course, to retain control of the trademark it might be necessary to come to some licensing agreement, but trying to stamp out the use of -zilla is a serious case of shooting oneself in the foot. Hormel wised up about Spam; you'd think these folks would learn from that example.
Cheers
-b
It's going to be a stretch for Toho to prove what it needs to prove: that Mozilla is infringing on a trademark. The words 'Godzilla' are not used anywhere, and the logo is of a different shape and color than Godzilla (it looks more like a T-Rex than anything else). The suffix 'zilla' and the presence of a reptilian image is not enough to shut down a software project. If it were a movie, however, this would be a different issue.
I'm not a lawyer, though, so anyone with a legal education and a better angle on the subject, feel free to correct.
Excuse me? It's a clear case of fair use. Have corporations really been so successful in pulling the blinds over our collective eyes that people do not take issue with a company claiming ownership of the formative 'zilla' and any remote likeness of a "reptile-like creature?"
This would be roughly equivalent to the owners of the Chef Boyardee trademark claiming ownership of "Chef" when used in conjunction with any food product:P
Trademarks are NOT ownership of a word. It is ownership of a brand. Hence, I can call my product "Kleenex" if I'm selling candy. If I'm selling tissue, however, you can bet Kimberly-Clark would come knocking.
- James
Entertainment has its own trademark category. IANAL but unless Toho is offering Godzilla-branded telecommunication services, there's no likelihood of customer confusion and Toho has no legitimate right to crack down on unrelated uses (they're just proving the system can be abused by anyone with deep pockets).
Trademarks aren't about originality but authenticity and reputation. "Stealing" ideas is good--that's how civilization advances!
Here's the thing. Trademark requires that the holder of the trademark actively defend their mark. If they do not do so and it falls into common usage, it's too bad so sad for the trademark holder. So, even if you successfully argue that Mozilla infringed on Godzilla (are these really confusingly similar?), the judge will ask why they have let it exist for the past 10 years without questioning it.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Mozilla has nothing to do with Godzilla. Godzilla is a fictional character, Mozilla is a web browser and a user-agent. The term "Mozilla" as a user-agent has been around since the early days of Netscape. My guess is that any attempt to sue the Mozilla organization for trademark violation would be laughed out of court.
Not just Davezilla.com... Check out the list of other offending sites.
Here is a TESS search for the Godzilla trademark. You can look through there and see what they have trademarks on.
I disagree... I think it would be easy to argue:
Toho has no trademark on 'Zilla, because the use of that term for just about everything has become so common in the language that it no longer deserves trademark protection.
Just as Johnson & Johnson lost its grip on "Band-Aid" which is now a synonym for bandage.
The use of "'zillas" goes back many years and a trademark owner is required to agressively and proactively defend its trademark from dilution.
"'Zilla" is diluted, there's a pretty strong argument for that. And that defeats a trademark.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
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Wild Speculation.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Actually, I wouldn't mind if the Milk Council copyrighted the word "Got" in order to nix all those thousands of *wonderfully original* variations that never fail to make me laugh and laugh and laugh. "Got Root?" What a gut-buster!
Also, they don't have a trademark on the use of a dinosaur. At best, they can keep you from using "Zilla" in conjunction with a dinosaur logo, but they surely should not be able to keep you from using one or the other alone.
Personally, I think they should just back the heck off and count all of this as free advertising. It's not like they are losing any money as a result of these types of uses. All they are getting with a lawsuit is negative publicity. If they must protect their trademark, then at least come to an agreement that allows interested parties permission to specialized use of the name and/or logo.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
In other words: Let's say the company just sits around and does nothing about Mozilla, DaveZilla, WhateverZilla. A few years from now some toy company (let's call them ToyZilla.com) starts selling some green dinosaurs, calling them Godzilla. Of course Toho is going to sue them over trademark infringement, but ToyZilla.com's lawyers argue that Toho lost all rights to the trademark, since it didn't do anything about Mozilla and the like.
Therefore Toho's exec's say: Kill them while they're still small!
Don't blame the company for doing stupid things if stupid laws require them to do so.
But Toho has taken far too long to say anything about it, and they have no legitimate grounds upon which to complain now. They failed to defend their mark, and now it's part of the common lexicon. It's like what we saw recently with the claims of a privately-held patent on the JPEG standard. Many people rightly quoted, uh, someone, saying something like "those who sleep on their rights cannot expect others to defend them."
My deviantArt site
Isn't Band-Aid a stateside generic term for sticking plasters?
Isn't that what I said?
For the example to hold, "Band Aid" would have had to have been diluted such that it has entered the language:
1) Band Aid is a synonym for a self adhesive strip bandage.
2) Band Aid is an adjective meaning "A haphazard repair done quickly and temporary in nature"
3) Band Aid was a fund raising concert for starving people in africa.
That's pretty diluted. Just as 'Zilla has entered the language:
BugZilla
DiffZilla
MoZilla
Go!Zilla
TrafficZilla
and what was the phrase the judge in the Mattel v. Aqua/MCA/et.al. call Mattel?
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
for their 'Biotech Is Godzilla' song ?