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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."
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"...
So? "Geek" is a common term to describe, well, geeks. So to use the term "geek" as part of the name of a company or service that gives tech support to end users makes a lot of sense and I just don't see how it can be a protected term.
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
"Nerd" is the respectable term. "Nerd" implies some kind of knowledge, no matter how obscure. A nerd may be picked on, but he or she is always the master of their own domain.
A "geek" is a moronic chump who lacks social skills and knows nothing about anything. They are kinda like retards, except that they are not technically retarded. The geek is the armpit-sniffing nose-picker who can't handle his drugs. One is said to be "geeking out" if he ditches the pipe in the bushes and goes running at the sound of a faraway ambulance siren.
Let 'em keep the "geek."
-- Ethanol-fueled
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?
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.