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Apple Orders Memory Game Developers To Stop Using 'Memory' In Names
An anonymous reader writes with this bit of trademark absurdity from geek.com: "Ravensburger is a German gaming company that specializes in jigsaw puzzles, but has also expanded into other areas such as children's books and games. The company owns the trademark to a board game called 'Memory' and has demanded Apple stop offering apps that have the word 'memory' in their title or as a keyword associated with an app. It may seem ludicrous such a common word can be trademarked, but apparently this is a valid claim as Apple is now serving notices to app developers. The choice an infringing app developer has is to either rename their app or remove it from the App Store."
Yes, I understand that Apple didn't CHOOSE to do this (in this case anyway). It's the fact that they CAN that bothers me.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Actually, this is about them operating a walled garden! The developer doesn't even get to decide whether to challenge the claim in court. He complies or gets kicked out (with that app).
Do you know how many small developers this might impact? Each app may have hundreds or thousands of dollars in advertising, name brand awareness, web site names, artwork... etc. Apple should use its billions of dollars to squash this ridiculous claim. Its a word in a dictionary, not a proprietary trademark. This is Apple being a pussy.
Apple now has to comply with all IP notices as they are the champions of the game. Soon they will discover that is not possible.
This exact same copyright claim ...
No copyright claim is being made. This is about a trademark.
Copyrights, trademarks, and patents are three different things . How can we ever expect politicians to fix our IP system, when even many geeks seem incapable of understanding even the absolute basics?
Because Google hasn't done something similar? They've removed apps for trademark and copyright claims. But, hey, let's ignore that because we are Google fans.
Ok. And that stops me from installing those apps on Android... how, exactly?
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
And it's the fact they can that's what's the problem with the walled garden. If i'm a private company selling an app to you directly I can tell Ravensburger to go fuck themselves and if they want their trademark torn up they're welcome to take me to court. If i'm a developer selling through Apple or another walled garden, then who the hell am I supposed to appeal to? I could sue Ravensburger for damages, but in the mean time what do I do?
A board game named 'Memory' is a specific piece of IP.
Which means, no one but the group that owns the rights to the IP of aforementioned board game is allowed, legally, to create a memory based board game and name it 'Memory.'
It does not mean that group owns all instances of the word memory.
It does not mean that group owns all instances of memory based board games.
This is simple, basic stuff.
WTF, Apple Legal? You're good enough at what you do to get a judgement against one of your competitors/suppliers for using goddamn rounded corners, but not good enough to point out something that's obvious to most 4th graders?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
You do realize that plenty of "dictionary" words are trademarked, right? Apple, Windows, Subway, Amazon, Android, Fire. I could go on and on.
Which doesn't change the fact that this could happen so easily only because the other company only had to squeeze one throat to get a shutdown for *all* apps.
Ravensburger is a German company, so any English word is considered to be sufficiently exotic to be trademarked.
Remember that when the USA pushes next time for harmonization and enforcement of trademark laws in other countries.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
Nope.
You don't need to root an Android in order to side load apps.
You can also install alternate app stores.
It's that whole "open systems" thing.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
A C&D is not a court order. I'm not obliged to comply. If I made, for example, a memory checker system tool for iOS and Ravensburger sent me a C&D I could tell them to go screw as they would have no case. Apple, on the other hand, doesn't give a fuck as to the threat's credibility and is only thinking about risk management... so there goes my app, or it gets renamed to something useless nobody will ever find.