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AOL Sues Over "You've Got Male"
A reader sent us today's stupid
lawsuit. AOL is suing a Denver-area woman to get her to stop using the phrase "You've Got Male" in her book to online dating. *sigh* Put your own pithy comment about stupid lawsuits here.
To be fair if you have a trademark you legaly
have to defend it every time. Or it stops being a
trademark. So it is atleast part the fault of a
dumb system.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
"When people hear that phrase we believe they think of AOL."
Looks like we better all be careful about using the phrase 'frivolous lawsuit'.
What is stupid is the trademark over the phrase "You've got mail". That's such a common phrase---or at least close enough to the grammatically correct version---that it's amazing that AOL can have a trademark on it. Gee, why don't I just trademark "what's up" or "see you later"? Anyone more familiar with trademark law know about any possible restrictions on trademarking common terms?
And oh yeah, how AOL can be so high on itself about protecting a phrase that is so grammatically incorrect is beyond me. We all make mistakes, but a company with AOL's millions should at least be able to have the grammar capacity of a ten year old.
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In a real emergency, we would have all fled in terror, and you would not have been notified.
>Did you know that the US has like 4% of the
>world's population but over 50% of the world's
>lawyers?
This and similar figures just aren't true. To take one where I've seen the actual figures, it's commonly repeated and believed that there are less lawyers in Japan than the U.S. Maybe in absolute numbers, but not on a per capita bases. Japan has roughly the same proportion being trained as lawyers, but the majority do not become licensed for the courtroom and general practice, but instead work in-house. In the U.S., virtually all of us take bar examinations and receive general licenses, and work for ourselves, prosecuting authorities, or law firms. (But then, I knew one who graduated from Stanford and never took the bar, instead teaching high school math [independently wealthy, though], and two more who became housewives after a few years of practice. And I closed most of my practice and picked up a Ph.D.)
hawk, esq.
I used to be a cab driver and I used the phrase "Where do you want to go Today?" a lot. Way before Microsoft started using it. If AOL can sue so can I.
Cab drivers of the world unite. We could start a class action suit against Microsoft.
This screams stupidity yet again. Do we remember this?
1) Unix has said "You have mail" for a long time.
2) AOL has never gone after the people who parody them on The Simpsons, etc.
3) As usual in these cases (such as WB against their FANS), AOL is trying to sue someone for parody.
The problem isn't whether this woman meant it to cause harm to AOL or not, but whether AOL has a right to restrict the use of a phrase they don't even own! Since the words "mail" and "male" are completely different, and merely homonyms, this lends me to believe AOL's assertation will be this book serves to "confuse the public" or somesuch. Such confusion would be hard to find:
1) The book will be in the "self help" section.
2) Books about AOL are not.
3) Any 1st grader knows the difference between "mail" and "male"
To me this "small potatoes" bookwriter is not worth their time.
Lowmag.net
Didn't the courts already rule that AOL can't own the phrase "You've got mail"? I seem to recall reading that here in /.
If that's true, then there's no way they can sue someone for using a phrase that is derived from something they don't have the right to enforce as a trademark.
So I think that in return, the lady being sued should countersue for a whopping big sum of money. Seems fair to me.
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