Slashdot Mirror
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."
mothra will protect us
Wow, everyone is right. Slashdot is starting to become a comment board for the register.
Sun, 11 August, 2002
Goodbye little dragon guy!
[Blog] - Davezilla @ 07:07:43 pm
re: DAVEZILLA.COM
Dear Mr. Linabury:
We represent Toho Co., Ltd ("Toho") in intellectual property matters. Toho is the owner of all rights in and to the trademark and service mark GODZILLA and the GODZILLA characters. In addition, the name "GODZILLA" and the likeness of Toho's GODZILLA character are federally registered trademarks belonging to Toho. Copies of Toho's U.S. Registrations for GODZILLA and the GODZILLA character image are enclosed.
[Omitted long, dull paragraph about the history of Toho...]
It has come to our attention that you have incorporated the "ZILLA" portion of our client's GODZILLA marks in the name of your "DAVEZILLA.COM" domain name, and that you have included a "reptile-like" character as well as a "monster-like" character, which you refer to as "GODZILLA", on your website accesible through "DAVEZILLA.COM." Please be advised that your use of the GODZILLA mark constitutes a trademark infringement and confuses consumers and the public into believing that your "GODZILLA" character originates from Toho, which it does not. Moreover, your use of the "ZILLA" formative along with imagery associated with GODZILLA is likely to cause the users of your site to believe that the "DAVEZILLA.COM" website is either associated with, authorized by, or sponsored by our client, and demonstrates an attempt by you to trade on the goodwill built up by our client. As such, we request that you remove the objectionable imagery and reference to GODZILLA from your website to eliminate any likelihood of confusion and posibility of an inaccurate affiliation with Toho and GODZILLA.
We look forward to receiving your prompt reply, with a statement of your intentions, no later than August 16, 2002. Thank you for your anticipated cooperation.
Very truly yours,
SEYFARTH SHAW
Jill A. Jacobs
Wow. Guess the little dragon at the top has to go bye-bye. At least they are letting me keep the domain name. A few inaccuracies: I have, until today, never mentioned Godzilla, nor do I have any imagery of him on this site. Nor do I refer to my logo as Godzilla. It's always been, "That little dragon guy." Could have been a lot worse. Expect a new no changes to the banner and changes a tweak to the colophon. I'm not giving in.
On a related note, God decides to sue Toho for using the word "God" without His permission.
...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
That's fuckedzilla. Izilla hopezilla theyzilla don'tzilla comezilla afterzilla mezilla.
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.
This is one of the reasons there's no longer a green Mozilla logo, nor can you buy Mozilla dolls anymore. The owners of godzilla came down on Mozilla long ago.
joe.
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
The gecko from Geico insurance is getting hassled again by email.
...we need Robert Smith of The Cure to save us now. Nothing like a good ol' roshambo to settle this dispute.
I recommend the Mozilla project change its mascot to another cute character ...
Something more approachable, but still computer related ... a mouse would do nicely...
Since the original name was derived from Mosaic, and the NCSA project is shelved and Spyglass is no more, "Mosaic Mouse" would do nicely...
OK, sing it with me...
o/~ Join us now and share the software
For the most part, however, I doubt that people would think that dave was endorsed by the Godzilla trademark owners. Less so, Mozilla which doesn't actually use the "Godzilla" name. There's nothing wrong with parody, or flattery by mimicry. I don't think that there's much reason for fear, as long as the Mozilla group doesn't try to branch into the horror-movie genre.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
My nick is in trouble.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
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.
Okay, I'll grant you that calling something ".+zilla" and using a dinosaur/dragon-like logo is probably coming close to violating a Godzilla trademark.
But what ever happened to the concept of a restricted space within which trademarks are (were?) supposed to operate? I had understood that trademarks were only protected within the same general "realm" of a product -- which is how we've got Excel cars and Excel spreadsheets.
It's seemed to me, with the advent of the modern internet, that all these distinctions have been thrown away, and that the courts are allowing that diminished distinction. So Palm has to stop calling their Pilot a "Pilot" because a pen company complains.
Does anyone know what exactly is the deal here? Have domain-name disputes finally opened the door for a single, universal, all-encompasing product namespace?
If someone wants to call their browser Mozilla (or even Godzilla), then they should be able to, because the chances of someone confusing a web browser with a big lizard are pretty darned slim.
Or have I misunderstood this aspect of (US) trademark law all along?
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
Almost every graphical web browser's User-Agent string starts with "Mozilla/4.0". So unless they go after Opera, AOL and Microsoft, then they aren't adequately defending their trademark -- hence they no longer own exclusive rights to the trademark.
Man: I now pronounce you President of these United --
Reporter: Stop the inauguration! I just discovered our President Elect
got an F in second grade gym class!
[crows gasps; Lisa is handcuffed]
Man: In that case I sentence you to a lifetime of horror on Monster
Island. [to Lisa] Don't worry, it's just a name.
[Lisa and others are chased by fire-breathing monsters]
Lisa: He said it was just a name!
Man: What he meant is that Monster Island is actually a peninsula.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
Sun, 11 August, 2002, war begining !
Goodbye little dragon guy!
[Blog] - Davezilla @ 07:07:43 pm
re: DAVEZILLA.COM
Dear Mr. Linabury:
What happen ? Someone set up us the trademark infringement ! Take off every 'zilla' ! You know what you doing.
For great justice,
SEYFARTH SHAW
Jill A. Jacobs
The zilla is only a relict of a misleading transcription of the ji syllable which is the soft form of shi (or si) in the alternate trasncription. ;-)
Anyway, the zilla could be an allusion to jirasu (to irritate)
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
Come on, lets be serious davezilla and mozilla were inspired by Godzilla (little dragon guy). While I think that the trademark owners are being totally stupid about this its their right.
/inspired/ by Godzilla. But it's /not/ Godzilla. It's Davezilla. Can you honestly say that you could ever possibly confuse the two? That anyone could ever confuse the two? No? Well then there's no trademark infringement, since that is the benchmark.
Yes - exactly. It was
- James
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
Nonsense, everyone knows that Godzilla originated in the depths of time and crawled out of the Pacific after the U.S. nuked the Bikini Islands.
Moreover, your use of the "ZILLA" formative ... is likely to cause the users of your site to believe that the "DAVEZILLA.COM" website is either associated with, authorized by, or sponsored by our client
This is what is known as a portmanteau word. That is a word that conveys meaning by using parts of other words that have definite associations. Words such as smog (smoke and fog), or, more inline with davezilla, monicagate (Monica and Watergate), infomercial (info and commercial), and Linux (Linus and Unix). Whether this can be construed as trademark infringement is somebody else's call, but I rather think that The Almighty (God) and Homer (Trademark holder of the monster named Scylla) might have something to say about this.
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.
The character and the movie is GOJIRA.
God-zilla is an American Eenglish bastardization. They should at least after the right fucking phoneme.
how rame.
Not just Davezilla.com... Check out the list of other offending sites.
Someone set us up the lame-ass joke.
Here is Dictionary.com's definition of zilla.
Also, consider that Microsoft didn't win againts Lindows and that's a much closer match since it even pertains to the same kind of item or good e.g. an Operating System
And rename it 'Butthead Japanese Company' instead.
Because at the end of Godzilla 2000 there's a little japanese guy that says that "There's a little Godzilla in all of us".
Don't know if that's legally binding or not.
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)
"fair use" is a feature of copyright law, and refers to specific kinds of usage (not just "anything I feel like"). Trademark law doesn't have that; you can use the trademarked thing only to refer to the trademarked product. If you were "passing off", or trying to use the name to refer to something *else*, that would be considered a violation. So, for instance, you can make gas caps and say "compatible with Ford Explorer", because you're using their trademark to refer to their product. On the other hand, if you were to create cans of processed meat labeled "SPAN" in yellow letters on a blue background showing a plate of ham-like substance, you would probably be sued, and rightfully so.
'zilla' is a lot more like "Boyardee" than like "Chef". I certainly can't think of a lot of uses of it before Godzilla showed up.
Some marks are deemed "famous", such that they get to reserve the whole field. This may be a bad design, but it's how the laws are written.
Consider this: If I produce a candy called "Ford Bubblegum", no one is going to think it's a car, or that I'm doing it with a license from the car company.
On the other hand, if I sold kitchen aprons labeled "Boyardee", someone might figure that, while it's not soup, it was clearly trying to take advantage of their fame.
Here's the question: Would a typical user, confronted with a large dinosaur-like thing that walks on its back legs and has things down its back, and breathes fire, and has a name ending in "zilla", be likely to infer an association between that product and Godzilla?
Yes, the user would.
Thus, it's probably a violation.
IANAL, but for fuck's sake, people, *THINK*. This looks exactly like trying to take advantage of someone else's product name and reputation to make your own product look cooler; in this case, trying to take the "big unstoppable monster" aspect of Godzilla and apply it to a browser. It even shows the traditional fire-breathing thing in the splash screen!
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
While Toho first trademarked the Godzilla word mark in 1981, they did not hold a trademark on its use in computer software until October of 1994. Mozilla started in "mid-1994" from the best info I've been able to find. I seem to remember someone showing it to me in the spring of that year, though that might have been Mosaic. Neither their first trademark nor the software one have any illustrations or descriptions of a lizard-like monster creature, though; that does not appear to be a part of the trademark. Their most comprehensive trademark was registered in 2000, presumably with the launch of the Sony movie. That one *still* doesn't describe godzilla though.
I'm no trademark attorney, but I'm guessing that, since they're not claiming in the trademark registration that the mark consists of the word + the monster, they don't have a leg to stand on with *zilla claims. Also, it doesn't appear they stopped Bugzilla (the cleaning agent, not the software) from registering its trademark in 2000. Milton Bradley has also owned a trademark on Eggzilla since 1987.
All in all, they have a lot of fish to fry if they're going to try to reserve *zilla as their own, including multiple existing or pending trademarks. (Budzilla, Rodzilla, and Speedzilla are all currently published for opposition.)
I love the Trademark Electronic Search System...
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
Note that the user agent strings in most browsers say "Mozilla." For example, IE 6 on .NET Server says, "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.2; .NET CLR 1.0.3705)."
This tells me that Mozilla has become common enough in its own right as distinct from Godzilla. The most they could do would be to try to force a change of mascot, much as it would be funny to see them try to argue "Your honor, we submit that the user agent string in Internet Explorer is in violation of our trademark rights, and demand 1% of all Windows sales revenue."
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
welcome to slashdot, you must be new here. I can answer your question with 2 words:
Wild Speculation.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
That's a killa! Next they go after vanilla and [the artist formerly identifiable as] Michael Jackson and his "Thrilla." And what about Hanna-Barbera and their Magilla Gorilla?
This whole thing just makes me feel illa.
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?
I used to own Mickey Mouse Massage Parlors, then those Disney sleazebags shut me down. Look, I said, I'll change the logo, put Mickey's pants back on, but there's just no reasoning with some people.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
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
If you think so, just try marketing a bandage called "Band-Aid" - Johnson & Johnson's well-funded legal department would be on your ass directly. Similarly, Kimberly-Clark ain't gonna let you sell "Kleenex" facial tissues. Xerox won't let you market "Xerox" machines. The Thermos company will lay the legal hurt on you if you try to sell vacuum insulated bottles by that name.
The only former trademarks I can think of that have actually lost their protection are "Asprin" and "Heroin," which were both US trademarks belonging to Bayer AG until 1919 when the IP rights to these two "wonder drugs" were ceded in the Treaty of Versailles, NOT because they became generic terms. Aspirin became a generic term because the trademark was stripped, not the other way around.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Butthead Japanese Filmmaker. (Along the lines of Apple's codename "Sagan," which was changed to "BHA" for butt head astronomer when Sagan whined.)
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
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)
Ummm...You wish? Actually, I take it from your post that you don't wish - You're just misinformed. Trademark law does, and always has had, the concept of 'Fair Use'. I would refer you to the Lanham Act which covers the topic.
Further, it has been made clear in innumerable court cases in the US that anyone is free to use any trademark for any purpose, so long as the consumer would not normally be confused by the use. To wit, in Soeco, Inc v. Shell Oil Co: "[A]nyone is free to use the term in its primary, descriptive sense so long as such use does not lead to customer confusion as to the source of the goods or services."
Your "Boyardee" argument is valid, but I believe my original point is still valid, because Davezilla is not making movies (Or action figures, comic books, or otherwise trying to trade on the Godzilla character)
- James
Your "Boyardee" argument is valid, but I believe
my original point is still valid, because
Davezilla is not making movies (Or action
figures, comic books, or otherwise trying to
trade on the Godzilla character)
And his dragon resembles the one on the Welsh flag
(http://www.data-wales.co.uk/flag.htm) far more than it does Godzilla.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Dear Mr. Minister:
It has come to our attention that you have incorporated the "GOD" portion of our client's GODZILLA marks in the name of your "Church of God" church name, and that you have included an unstoppable all-powerful being, which you refer to as "GOD", on your publications. Please be advised that your use of the "GOD" formative along with imagery associated with GODZILLA is likely to cause the users of your site to believe that the "Church of God" website is either associated with, authorized by, or sponsored by our client, and demonstrates an attempt by you to trade on the goodwill built up by our client.
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'