As the judge pointed out in Microsoft vs Lindows, it doesn't have to be generic in that field. It just has to be a generic word, as opposed to a "coined" word. You can read up on his comments or you can keep arguing the same stupidity.
As I pointed out, they probably have already lost it when they didn't defend against any of the numerous Risk clones over the years. As you point out - defend it or lose it.
I wouldn't be surprised if the lawyer ignores you. You don't have standing to demand of him any explanation of his letter to someone else.
Geez - all that huffing and puffing and you obviously didn't even read the frigging letter! What a waste of time.
But hopefully we'll find out just how much they're willing to push things sometime next year http://slashdot.org/~tomhudson/journal/123696 Why debate it when we can actually test it?
I don't bother with either the google toolbar or the local ("beagle") search. I fear it would make me too lazy to spend 10 minutes once a week to impose some organisation to my files.
Its like when my sister can't find anything after clickig throught eh whole "My Documents" crapfest. I tell her - make a directory outside of all that crap, call it some meaningful name, and stick everything relevant there.
ou're badly misusing the term "generic" to mean "not a made-up word", and note that even a made up word can become generic, e.g. linoleum, aspirin.
a implies b does not mean b implies a.
Of course made-up words can become generic. Never said otherwise - I actually have been arguing FOR that very point, in case you missed it.
The term "Risk" is generic - and if you look VERY carefully, they hoe that people won't notice their only claim is to the word "RISK" - all caps. All their literature, etc., even the legal beagle's letter, uses only the capitalized version.
Now what IS interesting is seeing if they move quickly to make a land grab for "OpenRisk" or "OpenRISK" or "openRISK" or variants thereof, now that I've broached the subject of sticking up a few game servers down the road using that name.
BTW - I still don't have the lawyer's email addy, but when I get it, I WILL post what I write, and their response. That should get at least a +1 Informative with you, instead of us just arguing back and forth:-)
So, what do you think about a game server where you can play OpenRISK with people aroud the world? And, of course, game mods, skins, etc. Do you have any particular features you'd like to see?
Nor could someone by the name of MacDonald start a restaurant called MacDonald's.
Wrong. Its been done. What they CAN'T do is make their promotional material, logos, etc., copy the look and feel of the McDonalds Golden Arches Co.
If you check, you'll see that most companies aren't called what you think they are. There's no such thinng as "McDonalds". It's "McDonalds Corporation". If your name is Joe McDonald, there is nothing to keep you from opening up a restaurant serving hamburgers called "Joe McDonald's Corporation", and putting up signs saying "McDonalds", provided they're not in the same color, background,and arrangement as the Big Mac people.
Hell, one guy opened a McDeli's right across the street from a McDonalds (literrally - if you jaywalked, the entrances were face-to-face) from McDonalds, look-alike buildings, etc, and McDonalds had to just sit there and take it up the you-know-what for a decade.
The incident does raise important questions about Google as a desktop software vendor and its plans for rolling out future security fixes, said MacDonald. "
... to this...
The incident does raise important questions about Microsoft as a desktop software vendor and its plans for rolling out future security fixes, said MacDonald. "
If you had, it would have "crashed" as the originally posted meant it... it couldn't handle further requests
You screwed up - if a server continues handling requests, even if it doesn't handle all of them because it only has a finite amount of worker threads, it hasn't "crashed".
It's flamebait because when Microsoft bought Hotmail, it was running BSD. They had to put in 10x the number of servers to get it to run under Windows, and even then, they had problems.
When Microsoft moved to buy Hotmail in 1997, it was already running on FreeBSD, and continued to do so for several years, a source of some embarrassment to Microsoft. The company had earlier said, though, that it removed all FreeBSD from Hotmail last summer, and even has a lengthy technical paper on its Web site describing the transition.
But Friday, Microsoft conceded FreeBSD was still being used at Hotmail on machines that track advertising and that run a crucial Internet function known as "DNS hosting." A Microsoft spokesman said he couldn't explain why Microsoft had given out incorrect information on the topic.
The spokesman said FreeBSD was still in use simply because the company had yet to switch the machines over to Windows.
But one employee of the Redmond, Wash., company said Microsoft has deliberately kept FreeBSD in parts of Hotmail because of its technical superiority over Windows in important functions and furthermore had decided to actually increase its reliance on FreeBSD. Many of the company's Web sites went down much of a day in January, and this person said FreeBSD was judged to be better than Windows at helping to prevent a recurrence of the problem.
So, while Microsoft has been adding "improvements", BSD hasn't stood still. Its STILL better than anything Microsoft has.
What I mean is, nothing aside from his own principles stop him from using a Windows PC to watch the video
Nice to know that people of proincple don't use Windows:-)
BTW - this is the SAME company that wants everyone to standardize on their bullshit MS-XML, and lies about how they "won't" sue anyone, when they've already laid the groundwork to do exactly that with 6 loopholes in their bs covenant.
How do you tell if a Microsoftie is lieing?
Balmer's lips are moving.
A few infinite loops, perhaps each creating a dozen new database connections and allocating a massive string buffer in memory.
Won't work. I accidently wrote some code that, instead of requesting 20 pix, requested 400 copies of each of 20 pics, for a total of 8,000 pics (a couple of nested loops that I crewed up on) every time a user clicked. So here I am testing it, and wondering why the server is taking a few seconds to respond... so I click again... and again. It works, I get the pics, but I'm wondering, so I keep on clicking, just for the hell of it, and do a top. Whoa, what a load! But Apache never crashed (and this was on a comparatively memory-poor box by today's standards - 256 meg), just took a second or two...
and nobody else connected to the box complained.
Spare me the anecdotal stories of your LAMP solutions doing so much better than your Windows solutions. You have absolutely no credibility given your complete ignorance.
No, its Windows that pretty much has no credibility. The one thing it DOES have that nobody else has is the widest selection of trojans, viruses, worms, and idiot users.
I can push about 50Mbits on my desktop to our local file server... so I would expect they could get better performance.
Geez, you're either running Windows or some really crappy hardware. I haven't seen Linux NOT be able to fully load a 100mbps local lan connection in ages.
What do yu mean, he delibertely handicapped himself. Like there's only "One True Format".
Hey, its not like they can't make the stuff available in multiple formats. Oh, right, this is Microsoft. They really can't handle multiple formats. Look at Word.
Yep. Apple (the computer co) and Apple (the music co) were very careful about avoiding a showdown in court when push came to shove. The risk was the same as in Windows vs Lindows - complete invalidation of the term.
Dell is named after its founder - specifically allowed under corporate law.
If you look at all the others, you'll see that they only claim the marks in relation to their particular product or service. They know that they can't claim a global ownership of a generic term. Hence both sides blinking in the Apple vs Apple conflict.
As for OSX Tiger, they ARE being sued.
Photoshop - as a 1-word term - didn't exist until Adobe created it.
IOW: Those who don't know history are doomed to get bitten by it.
Actually, non-lawyers are also free to do the same - there's an exemption in the law that states that threats of legal action are not considered extortion.
Definitely agree that they can copyright the individual words, format, etc., of the text of the rules. However, what they can't claim is that they own the copyright to the rules (the methods, gameplay, egc.) These are barred from copyright, and its the latter that the lawyer claims in the letter:
The RISK game, including the rules, is the copyrighted property of Hasbro.
Glad you agree. For those just tuning in, tere's quite a difference. For example, you write a book on driving, and you include your version of the rules of the road. I'm free to write my version of the rules of the road. As long as my rules are my words, and not just plagerizing yours, there's no problem. Neither of us owns copyright to the "rules of the road" - just to our descriptions of them.
And yet, the lawyer is claiming that the rules themselves, not their particular text of them, is covered by copyright.
Bizarre.
Now, as you point out, he wrote "Risk the Game".
Well, Hasbro doesn't own a trademark to "Risk The Game". They own a (questionable) word mark to "Risk", but nothing to "Risk the Game". A search of tess2.uspto.gov for "risk AND the AND game" turns up 34 hits, none of them with "Risk the Game" as a wordmark.
Could be argued the same as the Hard Rock Cafe vs Original Hard Rock Cafe fubar. That's what makes lawyers rich.
Same as you can bring out a game called "Risk - Emporer". Just don't copy their text or artwork, or their stylized logo (which is what they're probably going to base it on - RISK in all-caps as opposed to Risk" And if he was using the term w/o capitalizing it, he wasn't infringing their trademark (Hint - look at the box, and read their rules. It's all-caps). RISK vs Risk vs risk. They have a word mark on RISK. Even if "RISK" is a word mark, "Risk" isn't. It's just a plain english word describing one element of the game "Risk - the Game".
Next - how many angels can dance on the head of a pin...
Risk is descriptive of the game play. Everyone playing is balancing the risks of invading and defending with each roll of the dice.
On that basis alone, they have a descriptive, not suggestive, trademark. It describes the core feature of game play.
Interesting thing is, because Hasbro has acquired so many other brands (Parker Bros., Milton-Bradley, etc) they may now not be in an effective position, as a defacto quasi-monopoly, to use the same tactics to squash competitors that smaller companies can use.
And it conflicts with the Judge's statements in the Windows vs Lindows case.
Upshot (taking into account the judge's words) - they have an unenforceable, generic or descriptive word mark. Others can use it, and they can't stop them.
Exactly. Risk in this case fails the first test - it is not a made-up word.
It also fails the second test, because a central element of playing the game is evaluating the risk of invading other territories. You simply can't play the game if you don't evaluate your risks.
You're ignoring what the judge said in Lindows vs. Microsoft. It has nothing - zip - ndaa - zilch - zero to do with a particular market.
The uses of the word Windows that were presented as generic included uses from before computers existed. "Like the hole in the wall that you look thru and might have some glass".
That's what generic means. Not "to a specific market". That would be the opposite of generic.
Funny how they didn't go after all the other Risk clones, even though many of them use the same name, rules, etc. (see my journal for examples posted by other people).
Trademarks lapse if you don't efend them. They never had a valid on in any case, but in this case, its too late - that horse is no longer in the barn.
They won't sue. An analysis of their letter made it pretty obvious they don't have a case, and were hoping for the usual "ohoh - a lawyer said it so it must be true". Remember, half of all lawyers lose. And most of them absolutely hate going to court. Its not profitable, compared to working ut a settlement, and there's always the risk of losing. (there - another use of the term risk - its generic).
Next question - is Hasbro a de facto monopolist in the board game segment? How much of the market do they control through their various brands, such as Parker Brothers and Milton-Bradley? When you go to WallyWorld or Toys-R-Crap, that's pretty much all you see,
Next time I go into a store, I'm going to check out the shelves. If they've got 80% or more, they're a de facto monopoly. The rules are very much different in such cases, when it comes to anti-competitive behaviour.
But they do own the trademark Risk, and have every right to protect it.
They never owned a valid trademark to "Risk" as a standalone term, and as such they had no legal right to pull the sort of crap they've been pulling. And they know it. They are very much aware they're in the wrong - look at the lawyer's letter they sent. This is not a letter from someone confident they'll win in court - its a letter from someone hoping nobody will cotton on to at least one lie - their claim they own the copyright to the rules for playing the game, which is uncopyrightable.
It has nothing to do whether its generic in its field, but whether its generic, period. You can't all of a sudden claim proprietary rights to a word that has always been in the public commons.
Perhaps you should look at the examples Lindows put forth in Microsoft vs. Lindows. Most of them had NOTHING to do with computers - they predated computers. Like Window - an opening in a wall. Window washer. "Window into your mind." Caeement, single, double windows. WTF doe these have to do with a computer.
As the judge pointed out, you cannot take a generic term on its own and make it into a valid trademark. And once a term is generic, it stays generic forever.
Risk was a generic term. It never meant specifically the game Risk until the game was made. And even then, it was not a valid trademark because the term was already generic for something known as "risk" - calculating odds.
If you don't like it, thats not my problem, but that's the way it is. The courts have already pronounced on it, Hasbro are jerks - they threw away a perfectly golden marketing opportunity - and even Microsoft had to walk away poorer rather than risk a definitive judgment - they didn't like the risks.
If you can show that a term was in general use before someone tries to trademark it, you've got a generic term, and they've got squat. Let them be a bit inventive next time - create a term, rather than try to appropriate one from the commons.
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As I pointed out, they probably have already lost it when they didn't defend against any of the numerous Risk clones over the years. As you point out - defend it or lose it.
Geez - all that huffing and puffing and you obviously didn't even read the frigging letter! What a waste of time.Of course, this means that you have more people trying out different things.
Sun then takes the most interesting stuff, and puts it in their next ge chips.
How is this (getting people to improve your product) a dumb idea?
They may not have any trademark protection because they failed to protect it when the game clones came out http://slashdot.org/~tomhudson/journal/123559
But hopefully we'll find out just how much they're willing to push things sometime next year http://slashdot.org/~tomhudson/journal/123696 Why debate it when we can actually test it?
Constructive input welcome, of course :-)
I don't bother with either the google toolbar or the local ("beagle") search. I fear it would make me too lazy to spend 10 minutes once a week to impose some organisation to my files.
Its like when my sister can't find anything after clickig throught eh whole "My Documents" crapfest. I tell her - make a directory outside of all that crap, call it some meaningful name, and stick everything relevant there.
Of course made-up words can become generic. Never said otherwise - I actually have been arguing FOR that very point, in case you missed it.
The term "Risk" is generic - and if you look VERY carefully, they hoe that people won't notice their only claim is to the word "RISK" - all caps. All their literature, etc., even the legal beagle's letter, uses only the capitalized version.
Now what IS interesting is seeing if they move quickly to make a land grab for "OpenRisk" or "OpenRISK" or "openRISK" or variants thereof, now that I've broached the subject of sticking up a few game servers down the road using that name.
BTW - I still don't have the lawyer's email addy, but when I get it, I WILL post what I write, and their response. That should get at least a +1 Informative with you, instead of us just arguing back and forth :-)
So, what do you think about a game server where you can play OpenRISK with people aroud the world? And, of course, game mods, skins, etc. Do you have any particular features you'd like to see?
If you check, you'll see that most companies aren't called what you think they are. There's no such thinng as "McDonalds". It's "McDonalds Corporation". If your name is Joe McDonald, there is nothing to keep you from opening up a restaurant serving hamburgers called "Joe McDonald's Corporation", and putting up signs saying "McDonalds", provided they're not in the same color, background,and arrangement as the Big Mac people.
Hell, one guy opened a McDeli's right across the street from a McDonalds (literrally - if you jaywalked, the entrances were face-to-face) from McDonalds, look-alike buildings, etc, and McDonalds had to just sit there and take it up the you-know-what for a decade.
You screwed up - if a server continues handling requests, even if it doesn't handle all of them because it only has a finite amount of worker threads, it hasn't "crashed".
Nice try.
Even Microsoft acknowledged that BSD was superior to Windows http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~lloyd/tildeMisc/200 1/2001-MS-BSD.html
So, while Microsoft has been adding "improvements", BSD hasn't stood still. Its STILL better than anything Microsoft has.
No, it used to be "eat their own dogfood" - now its "drink the nice purple flavour-aid - or I'll fucking bury you!"
Microsoft's "open" format isn't.
Their covenant not to sue is a lie. It contains a half-dozen loopholes.
What I mean is, nothing aside from his own principles stop him from using a Windows PC to watch the video Nice to know that people of proincple don't use Windows :-)
BTW - this is the SAME company that wants everyone to standardize on their bullshit MS-XML, and lies about how they "won't" sue anyone, when they've already laid the groundwork to do exactly that with 6 loopholes in their bs covenant.
How do you tell if a Microsoftie is lieing?
Balmer's lips are moving.
No, never happen. There's more chance the next 4 posts are going to be dupes.
What do yu mean, he delibertely handicapped himself. Like there's only "One True Format".
Hey, its not like they can't make the stuff available in multiple formats. Oh, right, this is Microsoft. They really can't handle multiple formats. Look at Word.
Dell is named after its founder - specifically allowed under corporate law.
If you look at all the others, you'll see that they only claim the marks in relation to their particular product or service. They know that they can't claim a global ownership of a generic term. Hence both sides blinking in the Apple vs Apple conflict.
As for OSX Tiger, they ARE being sued.
Photoshop - as a 1-word term - didn't exist until Adobe created it.
IOW: Those who don't know history are doomed to get bitten by it.
Actually, non-lawyers are also free to do the same - there's an exemption in the law that states that threats of legal action are not considered extortion.
And yet, the lawyer is claiming that the rules themselves, not their particular text of them, is covered by copyright.
Bizarre.
Now, as you point out, he wrote "Risk the Game". Well, Hasbro doesn't own a trademark to "Risk The Game". They own a (questionable) word mark to "Risk", but nothing to "Risk the Game". A search of tess2.uspto.gov for "risk AND the AND game" turns up 34 hits, none of them with "Risk the Game" as a wordmark.
Could be argued the same as the Hard Rock Cafe vs Original Hard Rock Cafe fubar. That's what makes lawyers rich.
Same as you can bring out a game called "Risk - Emporer". Just don't copy their text or artwork, or their stylized logo (which is what they're probably going to base it on - RISK in all-caps as opposed to Risk" And if he was using the term w/o capitalizing it, he wasn't infringing their trademark (Hint - look at the box, and read their rules. It's all-caps). RISK vs Risk vs risk. They have a word mark on RISK. Even if "RISK" is a word mark, "Risk" isn't. It's just a plain english word describing one element of the game "Risk - the Game".
Next - how many angels can dance on the head of a pin ...
On that basis alone, they have a descriptive, not suggestive, trademark. It describes the core feature of game play.
Interesting thing is, because Hasbro has acquired so many other brands (Parker Bros., Milton-Bradley, etc) they may now not be in an effective position, as a defacto quasi-monopoly, to use the same tactics to squash competitors that smaller companies can use.
A quick search of the Trademarks database reveals this: http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=toc&state=k f6uc6.1.1&p_search=searchstr&BackReference=&p_L=10 0&p_plural=no&p_s_PARA1=risk&p_tagrepl~%3A=PARA1%2 4FM&expr=PARA1+or+PARA2&p_s_PARA2=&p_tagrepl~%3A=P ARA2%24ALL&a_default=search&a_search=Submit+Query
The first use for the game is http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=k f6uc6.2.4 in 1958, for a Word Mark in connection with a board game.
Of course, this conflicts with http://www.lectlaw.com/def2/m016.htmthis.
And it conflicts with the Judge's statements in the Windows vs Lindows case.
Upshot (taking into account the judge's words) - they have an unenforceable, generic or descriptive word mark. Others can use it, and they can't stop them.
It also fails the second test, because a central element of playing the game is evaluating the risk of invading other territories. You simply can't play the game if you don't evaluate your risks.
The uses of the word Windows that were presented as generic included uses from before computers existed. "Like the hole in the wall that you look thru and might have some glass".
That's what generic means. Not "to a specific market". That would be the opposite of generic.
Funny how they didn't go after all the other Risk clones, even though many of them use the same name, rules, etc. (see my journal for examples posted by other people).
Trademarks lapse if you don't efend them. They never had a valid on in any case, but in this case, its too late - that horse is no longer in the barn.
They won't sue. An analysis of their letter made it pretty obvious they don't have a case, and were hoping for the usual "ohoh - a lawyer said it so it must be true". Remember, half of all lawyers lose. And most of them absolutely hate going to court. Its not profitable, compared to working ut a settlement, and there's always the risk of losing. (there - another use of the term risk - its generic).
Next question - is Hasbro a de facto monopolist in the board game segment? How much of the market do they control through their various brands, such as Parker Brothers and Milton-Bradley? When you go to WallyWorld or Toys-R-Crap, that's pretty much all you see,
Next time I go into a store, I'm going to check out the shelves. If they've got 80% or more, they're a de facto monopoly. The rules are very much different in such cases, when it comes to anti-competitive behaviour.
"Did I ever imply otherwise?"
So how di I parse your previous statement?
They never owned a valid trademark to "Risk" as a standalone term, and as such they had no legal right to pull the sort of crap they've been pulling. And they know it. They are very much aware they're in the wrong - look at the lawyer's letter they sent. This is not a letter from someone confident they'll win in court - its a letter from someone hoping nobody will cotton on to at least one lie - their claim they own the copyright to the rules for playing the game, which is uncopyrightable.It has nothing to do whether its generic in its field, but whether its generic, period. You can't all of a sudden claim proprietary rights to a word that has always been in the public commons.
Perhaps you should look at the examples Lindows put forth in Microsoft vs. Lindows. Most of them had NOTHING to do with computers - they predated computers. Like Window - an opening in a wall. Window washer. "Window into your mind." Caeement, single, double windows. WTF doe these have to do with a computer.
As the judge pointed out, you cannot take a generic term on its own and make it into a valid trademark. And once a term is generic, it stays generic forever.
Risk was a generic term. It never meant specifically the game Risk until the game was made. And even then, it was not a valid trademark because the term was already generic for something known as "risk" - calculating odds.
If you don't like it, thats not my problem, but that's the way it is. The courts have already pronounced on it, Hasbro are jerks - they threw away a perfectly golden marketing opportunity - and even Microsoft had to walk away poorer rather than risk a definitive judgment - they didn't like the risks.
If you can show that a term was in general use before someone tries to trademark it, you've got a generic term, and they've got squat. Let them be a bit inventive next time - create a term, rather than try to appropriate one from the commons.