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Nintendo Seeks To Trademarks "It's On Like Donkey Kong"
eldavojohn writes "Nintendo has requested a trademark on the phrase 'It's on like Donkey Kong.' The phrase has been used in everything from rap to television in modern culture. From the article: 'The makers of the classic video-game franchise have filed a request with the US Patent and Trademark office to trademark the pop-culture phrase, "It's on like Donkey Kong." Nintendo claims that the catchphrase "is an old, popular Nintendo phrase that has a number of possible interpretations depending on how it's used."'"
...this article is on Like Donkey Kong. (TM)
"I Nintendo'd that shit." -- Used to describe an act where you alienate people that previously liked you for a really, really stupid reason.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I mean, can they really claim patent for a phrase that has millions of instances of prior use? IANAL, but surely they cant then start claiming royalties from the use of this phrase in current and future media? that would be like patenting the phrase 'how you doin'
Did Nintendo themselves ever actually use the phrase? I thought it was just a pop culture reference kinda thing, never a part of the actual franchise. >_>
I call shenanigans.
TFA says they're using it now to promote the new donkey kong country, but it seems like they're taking a phrase that the public created that is in the public domain and are trying to claim it as theirs.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
Since there haven't been many good Donkey Kong games in years, might I suggest a new variant on the phrase?
It's gone like Donkey Kong.
Don't you normally trademark something so that other people can't impersonate your work to give it a bad rep or something?
What does Nintendo have to gain by trademarking this phrase?
Dear Nintendo,
Congratulations, your request for trademark of the phrase "It's on rike Donkey Kong" has been approved.
Sincerely,
The Trademark Office
They're drawing the stuff for a real pissing match now, make no Short Order about it: it's Burgher time now, Chaps! They're bringing the Honkey Dong now, and throwin' them banaanars at the bitches!
>>Will this pass muster?
Dear Nintendo, Congratulations, your request for trademark of the phrase "It's on rike Donkey Kong" has been approved. Sincerely, The Trademark Office
I find your comment to be lacist.
Overrated Moderation: This posts sucks... because.
If "On like Donkey Kong" was a phrase used to market a game that consumers though was the Nintendo property, there might be a case here. That is the only test that is used to determine whether a phrase or symbol infringes a trademark.
Corporations who frivolously try to grab intellectual "property" like this should have to pay the government fees for using up taxpayer funded resources.
--
make install -not war
Indeed...
My understanding of copyright/patent/trademark laws is quite weak but I've always thought that you register trademarks in a limited scope. For example, if a software company trademarks the word "Explorer", some ship manufacturer could still also trademark "Explorer" because it is clear that the Explorer (tm) ships are different from the Explorer (tm) software.
How does that work when it comes to expressions like this one?
Barbara Streisand files for trademark over the use of "Streisand Effect"
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro7weKi019Y
Run with it, this place hasn't had a good solid meme for a long long time.
As in, lamely racist?
This is a pretty lame move to steal a public domain phrase created by the public, to increase some valuation of "Donkey Kong" that Nintendo named after King Kong, a media property to which Nintendo has never had any legitimate claim.
--
make install -not war
As in weally wacist.
More Twoson than Cupertino
This sounds like the real deal Holyfield...
Can we fix the rhyme and avoid the happy-birthday-to-you-copyright-or-trademark-fee?
It's on like Donkey Con.
Or Donkey Cohn, depending or which way you say it.
Raise your hand if you've never heard that phrase before, you think it's retarded and you hope never to hear it.
Grammar nazis are to this community what excrements are to gold.
It's On Like Donkey Kong in all fields.
Nor any of the Mario Bros. titles.
Ever.
Well, maybe for a few seconds in a store. Maybe.
So, whatever it is they think is on, I'm changing the channel.
You mean "learry lacist".
I suppose the translation would had been awfully more complicated if instead of Donkey Kong they were trying to trademark something related to the Malio and Ruigi Blothers
Devastation all around ... in the pr0n industry.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
They already have a Trademark on "Donkey Kong." Isn't that enough to stop people from using "It's On Like Donkey Kong" in branding their gaming products?
If successful, they will have to "use" the trademarked phrase actively to maintain it. Who wants that?
What about Trace Adkins 'Honky Tonk Badonkadonk', with the lyrics "Got it goin' on, Like Donkey Kong "? Are they including that phrases as well?
Even if they can trademark it, it's long since lost its novelty and value. A day late and a dollar short, so to speak.
Actually let's give them that phrase instead, then everyone wins.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
I will not have my fwiends widiculed by the common soldiewy!
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Concerning this new patent request, I'll see you in court! It's on like Donkey Kong®!!!
Have I lived a sheltered life? Is it really that common a phrase?
How much does it cost to try to file for a trademark like this?
How much free advertising is Nintendo getting for their upcoming DK sequel from various news outlets for *trying* to?
Does anyone think Nintendo even *cares* if they get the trademark or not?
:::The Spear in the heart of the Other is the Spear in the heart of You; You are He - Surak of Vulcan:::
I'm gonna bonk her like Conker!
If the shame of spouting this gem is not enough to stop you, it will probably get you beat quicker than saying "It looks like you have a case of the Mondays."
Who owns the Pokemon trademark?
I'm positive some late 80's hip-hop songs used this phrase first, it's been in the vernacular for a while but definitely has no origin from Nintendo themselves, such as originating from promotional literature, advertisements, or commercials. Maybe Beastie Boys used it (going from memory)?
They should find out which artist(s) used it first and clear things up with them. Rap commonly makes video game references, but I don't think that gives the related game company the right to trademark bits of the lyrics they did not write.
I have never heard or read that sentence before today.
As in weally wacist.
Just what we need, someone spreading FUD on a /. discussion.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
What does that even mean?
Is Donkey Kong on? Or not, implying that 'it' is not on either?
Clearly I can switch Donkey Kong 'On' and 'Off' at any time, making that statement useless. So it must be something else I'm missing here.
That's the bedrock of trademark law. Here's a classic example from my neck of the woods: A little organic fast-food place called "McDharma's" was sued by McDonald's. McDonald's successfully argued that visitors might be confused and think that because of the "Mc" appelation and the fact that the place served fast food, consumers would potentially be unsure as to whether it was associated with McDonald's or not. Furthermore, if McDharma's made boatloads of money by trading on this confusion, they would be running afoul of trademark law, which is designed to protect consumers from unscrupulous businesscritters.
When someone uses the phrase "It's on like Donkey Kong," there isn't any confusion about what we're talking about. Has anyone else used it in commerce? I don't know of any examples where they have. So Nintendo might be able to trademark this one, as counterintuitive as it sounds. You and I can say "It's on like Donkey Kong" until the cows come home. We can write it, make fun of it, etc., just like we do with any other corporate tagline. We just can't use it to sell something else that is confusingly similar to Donkey Kong.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Trademarks are divided into categories. When you register a trademark, you have to specify which category you're trademarking it in.
But once your trademark becomes sufficiently famous, you can enforce it against other categories because they're assumed to be merchandising.
"It's on like a plumber avoiding barrels to defeat a Gorilla and save a Princess!"
Also: The phrase "It's on" is only exciting if your talking to your partner about a condom.
Theonly time I've heard that phrase or something similar is in Trace Adkins' country hit "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" with the lyric, "she's got it goin' on like Donkey Kong". Other than that, no dice.
samzenpus wrote the headline 'Nintendo Seeks To Trademarks "It's On Like Donkey Kong" ', adding some necessary qualification, and a verb misagreement.
Don't be a plick.
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Luckily nobody is dumb enough to run a story about such an obvious ploy.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Pacman is my friend, Donkey Kong is an animal
-- Automan
Fight Spammers!
"I have a dream..."(TM)
... who can't claim to have heard this phrase before? Am I really the only person on Slashdot who is out of touch with "pop culture" insofar as Nintendo games are part of pop culture?
I'm 24, it's not like I'm either too old to be in touch with pop culture, or too young to have played any Donkey Kong games when they were big.
It's a real shame that I'm not a red-headed stepchild. I'd make millions...
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
I've been a fan of Nintendo for over 20 years. OVER. This kind of corporate idiocy just proves AGAIN why we need to eliminate all corporations. HORRIBLE.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
I mean, can they really claim patent for a phrase that has millions of instances of prior use? IANAL, but surely they cant then start claiming royalties from the use of this phrase in current and future media? that would be like patenting the phrase 'how you doin'
Prior use is entirely irrelevant in trademark (except for prior concurrent use by another manufacturer). Basically, unlike patents or copyrights, the question isn't "has someone used this phrase before?" Rather, it's "has someone used this phrase to refer to a non-Nintendo property?" In other words, when someone says this, do you think of Nintendo, or do you think of Sega, Apple, General Motors, Bob's Discount House of Kong, etc.?
Suffice to say, no. So use prior to the trademark registration is irrelevant. Actually, more than that, it's beneficial - third party usage (the millions of instances of prior use, all of which referred to Nintendo's game) can actually accrue to the benefit of the trademark owner. So, yeah - if you said it last year, but you were referring to the Nintendo game Donkey Kong, then you just strengthened the mark, rather than creating invalidating prior art.
I assume Marvin is heading to the patent office as we speak?
Must be a US thing, I've never heard it here in the UK.
Either that or I'm more past it than I realised...
It's official. Most of you are morons.
wabbit season!
weinersmith
Duck Season! Fire!!!!!
*walks over to retrieve beak and affixes it back on face*
You're deshpicable!
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
"Its on like Crazy Kong"
On the other hand there's a difference between trademark laws and the others.
- Copyright law could be enforced, is often so, but don't necessarily need to. (Some companies tolerate some amount of piracy because it's not worth the effort to actively combat it and on the other hand it brings free publicity. See DRM-less non-free indie games).
- Patents could be enforced, but the current trend is just to sit on a pile of them and use them as a menace in a nuclear Mutual-Assured-Destruction (MAD) like fashion. Only use them to kill an oponent. Or as a way to form alliances.
- Trademarks on the other hand REQUIRE you to take active step. The law ODERS you to protect your brand or you could lose it.
If you don't show that you take measure to avoid brand dilution, the word gets genericized and stop designating your specifically branded product but the whole type of product. (Lots of everyday object, in french, are colloquially called by names which are former brand names). As an exemple, Google needs to publicise and encourage correct usage of its name to avoid that googling degrades into a verb meaning "searching online, no matter the engine". If that where let to happen, then Microsoft would be free to name their search engine as "Microsoft Google" instead of Bing. Google would be left out without any way to complain : they didn't defent the Google trademark, the name got diluted, genericized and now means any type of search engine. In this hypothetic alternate world, were google is a noun interchangrable with "search", MS could use it to name a product just a they could have named is "MS Search". Google would lose its possibility to get recognised by consumer.
In this situation, Nintendo *has to*... is *required by trademark law* to show that they actively protect their trademark. If they don't the phrase "donkey kong" could start to simply mean "something mighty" instead of "that precise character from Nintendo's games". If that were to happen, SEGA could without problem creat a caracter called "Mr. Strong the donkey kong" (= furry side kick n1857 in the next instalment of the Sonic series of game :-P )
Now the whole trademark law is designed around brand recognition and deception (making sure that a TM-ed name designs precisely what it should not look-a-like) - not about controlling what can one say (that would be free-speech violation and is a big "no-no" in most western countries). In "on like Donkey Kong", you can prove that nobody is trying to pass *another* product as being a donkey kong, it clearly designate *The* Donkey Kong from Nintendo (As opposite to any other mighty gorilla) and you just *compare* to it. So Nintendo is very probably going to lose this. BUT they *have to do it* anyway, just to show that they care about the trademark, other wise they might subsequently lose it as per trademark law.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
As in weally wacist.
Just what we need, someone spreading FUD on a /. discussion.
Nicely done... Arthur Q. Bryan would be proud!
Bow-ties are cool.
Some day, we should copyright and trademark every possible combination of text up to 180 chars.
Shall we?