Christ what a fucking moron. Seems to be a running theme with fascists.
This raises the question, why was a company allowed to trademark a letter?
You can’t trademark a letter. Trademarks are extremely narrow and are only meant to apply in circumstances where one organization’s symbol could be confused for another. In general I am very anti-intellectual-property, but trademarks are okay in my book. They are basically for consumer protection.
@pruwybn @storksforlegs In the future, everytime you use the letter X, even to text, you will be charged a fee of x amount of cents based on your income.
@pruwybn @storksforlegs
Because *money*
we wouldn’t be at all terribly surprised to know that the billionaire is aware of Microsoft’s patent and more than willing to take the title to court.
Patent? lol
the amount of times I’ve read an internet article about this topic only to be met with a shockingly trivial mistake present front and center is staggering. the differences between patent, trademark, wordmark, etc. are all easily googleable and yet pretty much every article I’ve read on this has been using them interchangeably.
incoming rhetorical question: are these editors orangutans? (before anybody answers, i know editors & authors want to be the first one out the door so they get the most clicks and all that, but it’s really not hard to make sure you’re at least using the correct word. It seriously took me 20 seconds to find an answer on the difference between patent and trademark)
I think a lot of the issue is the widespread use of the term Intellectual Property which, arguably deliberately, conflates a few completely distinct legal concepts under one umbrella.
It’s intentional in the sense that they all involve intangible works of the mind and are only “property” in the legal system due to developments much, much later than the “I’ll bash you with a club if take my food” or the “I’ll stab you with a spear if occupy my farm” social contracts of personal and real property. It was very useful for those learning the law.
You’re right that they do very different things in society though, and it’s not particularly helpful outside the legal profession to bundle them so tightly together. Trademarks in particular should only protect branding and identity and when not abused provide a pretty valuable direct service for consumers in that you know who you’re dealing with.
The other two protect creators and therefore indirectly promise to “encourage innovation” that should benefit everyone, but they’re literally nothing more than legalized, if limited, monopolies. As Disney has shown though, you can smear the edges of copyright and trademark until they start to blend together.
Thank you for announcing the rhetorical question. I don’t think I would have been prepared for that.
are these editors orangutans?
The Librarian would be much more meticulous tyvm.
I can understand a company like Google (Alphabet) and Facebook (Meta) re-branding their wider business infrastructure. Twitter is just Twitter. X is just nostalgia, and Musk is being totally irresponsible with these announcments. He is a petulant little child, looking for attention and the likes. Damn childish - his entire Twitter venture.
Whats microsoft doing with X?
Aside from ActiveX, DirectX and Xbox…
from trademark (note registered in 2003)
for: providing on-line chat rooms for transmission of messages among computer users concerning video and computer games; providing on-line electronic bulletin boards for transmission of messages among computer users concerning video and computer games, in class 38
for: entertainment services, namely, providing interactive multiplayer game services for games played over computer networks and global communications networks; providing computer games and video games downloadable over computer global communications networks; providing information on the video game and computer game industries via the internet; and providing information on computer games, video games, video game consoles and accessories therefor via the internet, in class 41
in short: basically what they did in the ensuing years with Xbox and Games for Windows - Live
iPhone X… It’s not like X, the latin letter, is owned and used by Microsoft only.
