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Best Buy Flexes Legal Muscles Over "Geek"
siliconbits writes "US Electronics retailer Best Buy has been slow but steady in the fight to protect its Geek Squad trademark, but some are wondering whether the 800-lb gorilla of the tech retailing sector is going too far in its war to right some wrongs. The word 'Geek' is a century-old word that used to mean 'fool' or 'crazy,' but has, since the beginning of the 1980s, been associated with fans of technology in general and computers in particular. That hasn't prevented a number of geek-themed companies from being hit by Best Buy's legal team over the last decade, including Geek Housecalls, Rent a Geek, Geek Rescue, Speak with A Geek and, not surprisingly, arch-rival Newegg."
If you can't compete with them, sue them. It worked for SCO!
I'd say that the world's questionably-socially-adept technology enthusiasts have a much better defamation case against Best Buy's appropriation of the term for their "Geek Squad"...
Note: this doesn't mean it's a slam dunk for Best Buy... Newegg's defense is that "geek" is a generic term, and it could well be. The point is just that trademarks only apply to commercial speech.
When will they be going after the heirs of Fred Blassie?
At least "geek" isn't a part of the body. I'm waiting for the day we have to pay Facebook royalties every time we put the word 'face' in personal correspondence.
Replace "Geek Squad" in that summary with "Apple," "Sun" or "Oracle." Being a century or more old doesn't mean that it can't be trademarked and protected in commerce. If companies don't protect their trademark, they lose it, and Best Buy is no different.
Now, we work for them.
Maybe CompGeeks should take issue with Best Buy - they've been doing the geek thing for 15 years.
Geeks are supposed to be crazed circus side show freaks that bite the heads off of chickens.
http://youtu.be/JNM4atakanI
A "geek" was a circus freak that bit the heads off live chickens. This begs for a photoshop challenge to depict the "Real Geek Squad" servicing computers...
We're losing customers to Newegg! We need to stop price gouging our repair services! We need to hire actually knowledgeable and well trained sales representatives! We need to carry a better selection of components that aren't grossly overpriced! We need to .... ah screw it too much overhead let's just sue them over use of the word geek.
Newegg actually sells cables and computer hardware at realistic prices. Bestbuy is ok for buying movies if they are on sale.
Perhaps they are going back to the roots of the word "Geek" by trying to eat the competition.
This really makes me wonder how far one should be allowed to use common terms. In this particular case, the argument is against the decades-old term "geek". How far should companies wanting to engage in commerce be allowed to take a trademark? To me, even the example of the word "geek" is ridiculous, but if you want the most extreme form of insanity when it comes to current copyright/trademark laws, iAnyone doesn't have to iLook any further than Apple, and their iMonopoly over a single letter. At what point should we draw the line?
If the "Geek Squad's" track record indicates anything, it is that they are not worthy of the title "geek" anything.
Anyone who brings their computer to Best Buy for service either 1) Has never brought their computer to best buy for service before, 2) Is too stupid to know any better, or 3) Have no friends who have even a remedial knowledge of IT.
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
I guess CmdrTaco had the wisdom to see this coming when he created a website with "News for Nerds." Just imagine what type of trouble /. would be in if it was "Gadgets for Geeks" or something along those lines!
Makes me wonder where the world might be if we stopped expending time, money and effort on stupid shit like litigation over the use of the word "geek".
THE SOFTWARE, IT NO WORKY!!!
They only used "Geek Squad" because everybody already knew what it meant. Therefore, it's not theirs.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Best Buy will lose this case. And all it will do is give Newegg that much more cache with their current customer base.
House of Pizza, Luigi's Pizza, New York Pizza, Mario's Pizza, etc
Maybe I did the right thing by selling my "geek" domain last year.
end
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
It didn't mean "fool or crazy", a "geek" was someone who ate live animals. 1920s goldfish swallowers, for example.
Free Martian Whores!
To me, "geek" has always ment a tallented amature, and enthusiast.
When it comes to computers and other electronics, I want to work with a trained professional.
From their use of the word "geek" and association with it they have always impressed me as used car salesmen.
Their considering ownership of the word "geek" only reinforces my belief.
YMMV
The title is misleading. Best Buy is defending uses of the word Geek in a context that can be confused with the brand Geek Squad.
Here is a photo of the alleged infringement.
After looking at the logos, it doesn't look like Best Buy has much of a case. I don't see how a reasonable person can confuse the two usages.
Newegg dominates the shit out of Best Buy. Newegg is possibly the best computer / electronics retailer, while Best Buy is possibly the worst.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
So something that starts out as a trademark, but becomes generic passes into the public realm, but if it starts out in the public realm, then gets rolled into a trademark it gets pulled out of general use?
Well it has a symmetry to it's logic I suppose.
And yet here you are...
Porquoi?
These Best Buy people are ignorant to the fact that this kind of possessive mediocracy leaves a very fowl taste in the mouth of what could be potential customers. Leave the GEEK out of your bag of tricks and watch the geeks flock your store. Don't be what you claim to be, but are not. Geeks would have a much more casual, lucrative business model than this, making the arduous task of buying new electronic equipment a more enjoyable experience without the malarky. Get some new top management ideas or fall by the wayside.
It comes from the Low German word "geck" meaning fool or crazy. Sideshow or freak show circus wild (as in crazy) men were called "geeks", and to demonstrate craziness did such stunts as biting chicken's heads off and swallowed and regurgitated live goldfish. In the 1930s, goldfish swallowing was a fad in colleges and was sometimes called being a geek.
Geek Squad is a sales forces with real techs push over people who can sell rip off monster cables and extended warrantys also Best Buy's optimization wizards have fabricated a devilish scam to exploit uninformed customers. Employees download a PlayStation 3's firmware update in advance and tack on an extra $30 to the cost of the system. http://consumerist.com/2010/10/best-buy-will-give-you-free-ps3-software-for-30-mandatory-charge.html
Some times There were no computers left that weren't currently being optimized by the Geek Squad for sale at some best buys.
Real techs need to sell and ripoff at best buy to get hours. Stapes is just as bad with high press sales push on the techs.
not ThinkGeek? Should be called "ThinkNeckbeard" these days considering the shift to hipster crap.
I hate big box repair services so much.
I once had what seemed to be a dud power supply, and I went to the Circuit City near my house because I knew they would have something that would work to replace it. I also figured they would have one of those gadgets for testing power supplies. So I took the power supply out and headed over.
Their support desk said they really preferred to troubleshoot the whole computer, then suggested I go home, put the power supply back in the case, then bring the whole thing back in and pay them $100 just to look at it. I said "no, it's almost certainly just the power supply, just plug it into that thing" and pointed at the tester sitting on the table next to them. After some convincing the guy finally did, and that was when it got *super* scam-tastic.
Luckily I could look over the counter and see that not all the green lights were on when he said "nope, looks like it works fine." I asked him why the +12V rail light hadn't come on, and he tried to tell me that it should work fine, even without +12V, and that that's normal. Of course that gave him an opening to try - again - to tell me to go home, put the (obviously defective) power supply back in the case and bring the whole thing in so they could get $100 just to put it on a shelf for a few days before calling me and saying "you don't have an operating system." To which I would say "no shit, I just built it and it's never even been powered on. Is the power supply broken? Of course it is, you dumb fucks."
If they had the balls to try and pull that shit on somebody like me, who comes in sporting a geek beard, holding a very fancy power supply and knowing at a glance which of their tools I need to borrow for 15 seconds...I shudder at the thought of what they must have pulled on people like - say - my mother.
I doubt any large chain repair service is any better. I hope the Geek Squad chokes and dies.
Porquoi?
BestBuy was also pissed off at Newegg for creating their "Geek On" t-shirts which used the power/standby symbol ( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_symbol) defined in IEC 5009.
BB claims it violates their Geek Squad logo which alters the IEC 5009 image to change the vertical line to be a necktie, symbolizing the Geek Squad black tie look they use.
Geek Squad used to be good back when it was its own company, before they sold out to BB. Now since every couch potato fool thinks they are a systems technician - and BB willingly hires them - they aren't nearly up to the level they once were.
I rather say Greece. As, if your from Greece your Greek. Remove the 'R' from Greek and you are left with Geek!, How dare a country steal an american store's trademark!
Its just BRUTAL! xD
If you haven't seen it, go watch Heathers. One of my favorite films.
Maybe it's changed in the last two years, but when I bought a laptop at Best Buy (they actually had the best deal around) all they had left was one with Geek Squad stuff already installed. Since I didn't need or want the software, they simply changed the SKU for me and asked me to remove the software.
AJ Henderson
They have geek squatter. They squat on the geek name, but are not even qualified to plug in power cables.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
... Is still an unattractive, noisome and irritating piece of shit. Seriously, who in their right mind would entrust his belongings to an outfit called "geek squad"? I'd call them just to bash their heads into a wall, steal their lunch money and force them to eat dog feces.
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
Best Buy and the Corporate World in general should not be allowed to steal common words. Dumb just like patents that last forever. I would think 25 years should be plenty. Holds back invention and competition as it is.
I own a small computer store and the stories I have heard
from my customers about the Geek Squad and their
experiences with them makes me wonder how they are
still in business. I get over 50% of my business from word
of mouth since everyone likes my service and pricing and
my business keeps growing. Wouldn't it work the same way
but to the negative if everyone complained about pricing and
service? Wouldn't you eventually go out of business? Not one
of my customers has anything good to say about the Squad.
Being that the term "geek" is somewhat of a generic term, I thought the proper legal method here would be to do what the Science Fiction Channel did a few years ago, and redefine their brand as "Syfy". So you could rewrite "geek" as "geak" or "geke",. . .
Good thing it's news for nerds over here.
Best Buy's geek squad are absolutely clueless. I've had the misfortune of dealing with 2 seperate best buy's and both "geek squads" didn't know their ass from a hole in the ground. The typical responses from "geek squad" are reboot, reboot again but wait 20 seconds while it's unplugged then call back. if you ever do bring it in they keep it for few days, then say "we had to send it to manufacturer for repair" or "we can swap it for something else" with something else being a lower powered item they blame inflation for not swapping for exact item. And screw em, if anyone wants to use the term geek in advertising in response to their support I see absolutely no problem. And newegg is 1000x far better than best buy will ever hope to be. and cheaper.
will be the Greek nation. However, Best Buy may instead opt to buy them out for 200,000 Euros.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I bought my daughter a laptop from bestbuy on a special offer; I had to leave the laptop with them to deinstall the crapware they they otherwise wanted me to pay for; I told them to please just use the OS recovery disk and wipe it clean which would be faster and cleaner, but they insisted on deinstalling.
So, went back much later, collected the laptop, saw it still had crapware on it but in evaluation mode, so wiped it flat.
HTTP://www.lapcfixer.com/
I have no connection other than being a very happy customer.
any College / tech school is better the geeks at best buy as all best buy wants are people who can sell.
So the Best Buy equivalent would be if you went to the Circus is that the new trainer is the ticket guy who up sold the most VIP setting upgrades or the guy with the beat concession stand sales.
A 'geek" was actually a circus performer who bit the heads off of chickens. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/geek
Should have done that in the first place, or just put a Linux distro on it. When I got my wife a small netbook a few years ago, after less than a year, the XP install started to tank, so I put the Remix version of Ubuntu on it (8.x version, I don't remember), and I couldn't get get a non-Linux distro now on her machine now if I paid her. She does a lot of stuff on it that a student would I'm sure, writing, creating recipe databases, etc. She doesn't handle the updates well, (she still trusts ME to be her "tech support" on it) but other than that, she loves it. Speed was the major bonus for her, plus the stability.
Just saying, not looking for flamebait here.
Stone
Thats whats wrong with America.
You give a inch and somehow they get a mile. It has to stop.
If not someone is going to get killed.
That someone is America. Were not in enough decline for you fucking assholes who do this.
Geeks bite the heads off of chickens. I'd rather be a member of the Nerd Herd than the Geek Squad.
Of course, if you throw Yvonne Strahovski into the mix, I don't think anyone would pick geek over nerd.
2 cents...
Does "prior art" apply in trademark cases?
I would be very surprised if "Geek Squad" was the first company to offer computer and tech support services with the word "Geek" in the company name.
I own the domain geekbiker.net, currently only used for email. So should I expect them to try to sue me?
Their geeks are incompetent and only give the name geek a bad name. I've already told all my friends to never, under any circumstances, let Best Buy touch their computers.
Best Buy want to trademark a word that means 'fool' or 'crazy'. Sounds about right.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
...a Pencil-Neck Geek Squad! Fortunately, Freddie Blassie is dead now...
I saw google news headline stating the next Miss USA is a big Geek, Best Buy better hurry and hit that, I mean sue.
I assume Best Buy won't sue Buy More for its Nerd Herd that mocks Geek Squad. ;)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Everyone should send this message to Best Buy.
"I refuse to shop at Best Buy even though I consider myself to be a 'GEEK.' So sue me."
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.
Window shopping then go place order on NG.
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
All I can say is, their policies are GREAT for the "little guys" trying to compete with them, like myself. I do on-site service calls and consulting work for both Windows PCs and Macs as a side job (evenings and weekends, mostly). My total "advertising budget: probably averages around $800-1000/yr. since handing out business cards and word-of-mouth referrals are the most effective tool I have.
I'd say a good 50% of the calls I get are from people needing a virus or malware removed, and another 10%-20% are for other issues, but wind up involving some of that before everything's completed. (EG. User says their old PC was getting too slow, so they bought a new one, and now they want help getting all their stuff transferred over. Turns out the old machine WAS slow and needed replacing, BUT it also had some malware on it and the files really need to be virus scanned before moving them to the new system.)
Anyway, I currently bill at $75/hr. with a 1 hour minimum charge, and bill in 20 min. increments past the first hour. Most of the time, I can get a customer's machine all cleaned up within 1-2 hours or so, but that includes me running a full scan with a tool like "Malware Bytes" AND looking everything over manually -- checking things like the "Task Manager" to see which processes are running, and peering at what's in the "runonce" and "run" keys of the system registry. That also includes me verifying that everything is ok after everything appears to be removed, because automated removal tools don't always leave everything configured quite right after the malware is deleted. (Some malware will modify your Internet settings, for example. Perhaps the malware configured it to go through a proxy, and the trojan horse that USED to serve as that proxy is now gone -- so they just get "page not found" when launching IE....)
Other times I've had situations where the entire documents folder for the user appeared to be gone after the virus was cleaned up. It turned out the files were hidden and compressed up by the virus, and a command line tool had to be located that could unhide them and decompress them back to their original locations.
Point is ... when doing this stuff, there's no substitute for hands-on interaction and observation of what the system is doing, by someone with a little knowledge about all of it. Even if the GeekSquad people run their automated tools and bill the customer $150 or so, vs. me billing that same $150 or so? My job is more thorough and less likely to result in complications for them afterwards.
Even in a "worst case" scenario where I wind up electing to do a backup, format/re-install, and restore for a customer? Yeah, my rates may wind up running them as high as $350-400 ... but again, it's not some sloppy Best Buy definition of a backup. (I actually go through and delete the junk they really never intended to keep in the first place, like all those .tmp files in folders, or the duplicates of files they accidentally made when they did a drag and drop by mistake and created a copy with a (1) at the end of the filename. And I make sure ALL the available updates patches are applied before I declare it "finished". Adobe Acrobat Reader or Java or iTunes has updates? Yep... I do them all for them.)
My goal is to give them back a computer that's in some way running BETTER than what they had before they encountered the problem that caused them to call for service. Most people have a LOT of junk on their machines they don't want, but didn't know how to remove. A little time spent in the Add/Remove Programs part of the Control Panel while talking with them can do wonders.
Actually, they bought out another company called "The Geek Squad" which did on-site and in-shop computer repairs (and had a good reputation) based in the Minneapolis suburbs of MN. Years ago I worked at their pilot store (Minnetonka MN) when they did their first store roll-out. I came in from another on-site service company based elsewhere right after the initial buy out. This was during the time when they were still getting their investors drummed up over rolling it out nation wide. The company brand name and trademark definitely existed before Best Buy bought it.
A bit of history:
Best-buy had a terrible track record for their service and returns department prior to the purchase of the Geek Squad. It was commonly filled with CD sales and inventory workers (flunkies) and no one had any real training... Meanwhile, The Geek Squad had an excellent track record in the Minneapolis area. Best Buy put 0 and 2 together and figured they would improve the service at their stores by modeling after The Geek Squad (that is where the VW Bug thing started from, that came along with the purchase as the original Geek Squad did that and were in-fact called "agents").
My co-workers at the initial store were competent and knowledgeable (for the most part, there was about 10-15 of us there)... and many were "agents" of the original company for a while and during the initial trial the original "Geek Squad" guys were doing the on-site work still while we did the in-store work. We had people with computer diagnostic and repair backgrounds working at our bench separate from the people doing sales. They paid us crap but we could still turn around most computer repairs short of hardware replacements within about 24-48 hours or so in-store. Corporate was in love with that (for a bit) and our profits at the main store surged because it worked well. Then they wanted us to take it national, and our department had many people sent out to different cities to train their existing service departments on the new procedures and introduce brand awareness. I went out to another location as well, but I'll withold further details so as to remain at least partially anonymous.
The people we trained at stores after that were terrible (the previously mentioned flunkies) and corporate "sales" based programs and rules (and hiring practices) de-emphasized good technicians in favor of procedures to dupe as many people as possible into buying shit like ISP programs and OS / Motherboard re-installs. No one really needed that crap but corporate measures the success of their store's service by their "Attachment rates" of services per customer, not customer satisfaction. Internally, the service departments are ALSO rated by their sales figures. So they pushed that sales crap in order to fill the knowledge gaps of the people doing the work... leaving it to be flip-chart diagnostics at it's worst.
In addition to that "the management" found it completely acceptable to fill temporary staffing gaps at the computer repair desk with people from CD / Media, cashiering, inventory, etc. They expected us to teach these people how to diagnose computer problems (with no relevant computer skills) just for the days when we were short handed (happened regularly). On top of that, we had to keep our sales attachment rate up or we would be negatively reviewed as a department (and individually)...
Being competent and having morals and understanding that people were bringing me machines they couldn't really live without, I did not sell people the garbage services (like AOL / Earthlink or needless OS reinstalls and motherboard replacements) which means I was later terminated under the guise of being late to work by less than 15 minutes a whole whopping twice over a 1 yr period. This even considering than between myself and one other guy who came from the main investor store were able to take the average repair times from over 430th in the company to less than 150th in the company in less than 4 months while losing 2 other staff members of our department in
geek squad is a term the pc world hates. great call in a bunch of kids not even out of high school with no exp working on pcs to run a vires scan and tell me a need a new pc and charge me 200$ to say it no thank you.
unfortunately there's software she needs to run which isn't available on linux. for my mother, who's decided to get online, I set up my old laptop with ubuntu, and it connects to my home server over openvpn so I can log in to manage it as necessary.
the Amazon price >= BestBuy. Oh yeah there is definitely the CA tax factor, but in some cases its well worth when I get to use the product almost instantly (vs Amazon 2-day prime)...
There's always WINE.
What's ironic is, their info cards in the computer section are also completely useless. At best they might list whether it has an Intel or AMD CPU, but basically no other relevant info is on them anymore. I tried to help my less technically adept friend pick out a laptop in his budget range last month, and I wouldn't have been able to tell him the difference if I hadn't looked up some of the model numbers. Even just finding out if it had integrated or discrete graphics was a chore.
Whether that is just incompetence or intentional I can't say for sure. But if I had to make a guess -- I would say they intentionally leave them cryptic so people are forced to ask the sales person who can then try to up-sell them other stuff.