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Pokemon Gene Renamed Under Legal Threat
Gamasutra reports that the 'Pokemon' cancer-causing gene has been renamed after legal threats were made by Pokemon USA. From the article: "Scientific journal Nature reported that Pokémon USA, the subsidiary company of Nintendo established to control the Pokémon brand in America, threatened to sue the cancer research center on the understandable grounds that equating Pokémon with cancer was doing harm to the brand's image. Sloan-Kettering acquiesced to the company's demands and changed the gene's name to the more unobtrusive Zbtb7."
Call it Zbbt-achu!
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
Researchers jokingly name gene after franchise. Franchise owners ask that they change it. Researchers change it. STOP THE PRESSES! [/sarcasm]. Yeah, I'm cranky. Caffiene withdrawal.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
/obligatory
Cancermon! I choose you!
"To pass through the jungle; silence, courtesy, ferocity, as the occasion demands." -- Kamau, "Proper Passage"
So naming a gene whose function that one in a thousand people couldnt even begin to describe is harming their image, but blackening the skies with lawyers over what most people would consider a non-issue doesnt?
Nintendo should protect their brand, but come on. This 'intrusion' on thier namespace is pretty obscure. It's not as if the research facility is using the name to get grants or sell drugs.
Personally I think it's cool. There is actually a gene named after Sonic the hedgehoge that has a role in developmental biology. I'd think that companies would be amused that they are being recognized in important scientific work.
Of course the researchers backed down. They have far more important things to spend their money on than defending pointless lawsuits. They should have renamed the gene NLCBMSMA (Nintendo Lawyers Can Bite My Shiny Metal Ass) or would they have been sued by Fox instead?
1) Pokemon is a trademark; if you allow anyone to use a trademark for any reason you risk loosing the trademark because it can become a generic term.
Ref. Miller's Daughter the Queen v. Rumplestiltskin ?
"They should be honored that Pokemon was chosen as a name."
Dude! CANCER! Radiation! Chemotherapy! Dying bald kids! Their name would be tied to fewer deaths if somebody built the Pokemon Death Camp!