Can’t there be a way for legal departments to file a notice saying:
“We’re aware of this entity that is not remotely relevant to our trademark but happens to contain some of the same letters and we have decided it doesn’t infringe, being so completely unrelated. We’re still defending our trademark but this isn’t violating it. Thanks and bye.”
> Doomscroll may never rock. That could be a good thing; it could be too soon for a band that reminds us of our concentrated anxieties, the addictiveness of social media negativity.
I thought that little blurb in the article was a little out of left field as well, like the author felt a sudden urge to try and communicate that social media addiction is no joking matter.
Naming your game after a common English word (the word 'doom')? "Doctor, it hurts when I do that. Then don't do that." A metal band and a game are both entertainment, but different forms. Furthermore, the name Doomscroll isn't the same as Doom, as it consists of two English words. On top of that, fans of Doomscroll are unlikely to get confused with Doom the game. So, ID Software is in the wrong here... but they got deep pockets.
No to mention that "doom" is an English word and it has to do with people scrolling never-ending pages of bad news on social media! It has nothing to do with the video game...
Is there even anybody left at id who was involved in Doom's development to justify the "Doom's Creator" in the title?
I had always assumed that id Software under ZeniMax is a completely different company, different people, different tech stack, different ethics. But as an outsider of course I don't know how much of this is true.
Doom is also the name of the franchise, not just the original game. And this franchise is still actively developed and maintained by ID Software. The latest incarnation is from last year. So technically the headline is not wrong.
And it seems with Kevin Cloud there is someone who worked on the original Doom 1, as also the latest incarnation Doom Eternal.
Bingo. This is borderline clickbait. Just another instance of a giant corporation shitting on ordinary people. The real creators of DOOM are long gone, and wouldn't give a shit about something like this. Corporations, and lawyers, are as always a plague upon this earth.
> JB, the guy behind the Maryland Doom Fest, says he didn’t pursue the trademark after Id’s initial opposition. It would have been too expensive, he guesses.
Why do we still claim the world runs a democracy when the judicial system is clearly biased towards and abused by those who has the most time and resources to burn? The most mindblowing example I can think is when megacorps file bullshit claims that they know they would never win because they know the opposite party won't have the money to contest it.
Recently going through something very similar. I purchased a domain name for an app I was about to release, but it happened to conflict with a random German pharmaceutical drug for pets. There’s no industry overlap so I should be entitled to a trademark. But I got roped into a domain dispute case with WIPO for my .app domain. My lawyer said I could probably win the WIPO case, but the company would simply re-open the case in some other jurisdiction. Since my app is pre-revenue, I can’t really fight it. My lawyer recommended even though I was in the right, I should give up the fight because it could cost 100s of thousands of dollars with no guarantee of success.
The lesson I learned is that before purchasing a domain name, secure a trademark from the USPTO. It’s not cheap though. Can run $300 to $1000, which is nothing for a big corporation, but a big barrier for individual creators trying to get something off the ground.
This experience made me lose a lot of faith in “the law”. Rather than an level playing field among equals, it seems more like a protective moat for the rich and powerful.
That sucks. In my case I got a low 5 figure buy out offer which I figured I better take to not find what’s the next step. It was a useless blog which was using a part of a large entertainment company’s name
I think the bigger issues is that people like the legal system is inherently expensive, when often it isn’t. Although it frequently time consuming.
> It would have been too expensive, he guesses.
This attitude really bothers me. Why didn’t he find out how much it cost? It probably costs nothing to writing your own opposition and send it back to the trademark office. You’re only trying to convince an administrator, not a judge, and worst that can happen is you fail. But all you’ve lost is some time.
Most government processes are designed so it’s possible for a lay person to figure it out. The real trick lawyers have managed, is convincing us all that you can’t engage with government or the justice system without an overpaid lawyer.
If you engage with the case and the legal system you aren’t at work, you aren’t developing your product/company, you aren’t spending time with your family.
You spend you time doing something other than the thing you want to be doing, you sacrifice all the possible opportunities you could have had doing other things.
If you pay a lawyer or if you do it yourself it is expensive.
Even if you only spend half an hour writing an email, that’s time you’ve lost, and that time is more valuable to you on a small scale than the cost for the legal department of a massive company that can have someone writing emails all day and eating up all your time.
Conflict is an inherent part of society. Either you engage with it, and use the tools available to you to defend the things you care about. Or you shut the fuck up.
Most countries legal systems have very strong skews towards individuals, to make it easy(ish) for individuals to take on much larger entities. Most of the time these skews are so extreme that merely demonstrating that you understand how to send a correctly written letter is enough for most companies to back off. Large corporates prey entirely on the fact that people grossly underestimate how many rights they have, and make zero effort to enforce them.
If spending 30mins to write an email is too much effort. Then clearly the issue isn’t significant to you. In which shut up and go away. If you can’t be bothered to write a 30 min email, then why the hell should anyone else give a shit?
Conflict itself is an inherent part of society, but the level of its impact is not. In fact, I would say that making the mediation of conflict more efficient is an integral part of progress. For example, we no longer walk around continually prepared to get into physical fights (either by training ourselves or hiring bodyguards to do it for us), but have made it so the average person does not have to deal with this conflict (for the most part).
The US legal system is basically at the stage where you either hire bodyguards (attorneys), bulk yourself up (extensive legal study), or allow yourself to be pushed around by others.
Interacting with the current legal system is nowhere as easy as you're making it out to be. As a software engineer, yes one can straightforwardly read the law, develop legal intuition, and do a decent job representing yourself. I personally have done my own deeds, administrative court filings, and contract reviews. But I recognize that doing so took many days that I could have spent doing something else. It's nice to be able understand a different system at that level, do my own work, and really know what I'm dealing with - but it's anything but free. And I don't know that I'd ever be comfortable representing myself in a trademark dispute against professional adversaries that know the system intimately.
FWIW online surveillance is basically at the same stage of development. I've got a pretty good setup of VMs, custom router, VPNs, browser extensions, etc that does a good job keeping me protected. But I recognize that this takes resources to setup and maintain, and it would be ridiculous for me to tell the average person that surveillance isn't a problem because they can "just" do what I've done.
> Most countries legal systems have very strong skews towards individuals
I'd rather have a society where millions of people could fuck a company but in practice they don't, than one where a company can fuck millions of people and in practice it does.
> I'd rather have a society where millions of people could fuck a company but in practice they don't
In many parts of the world we already do. People just don’t realise it. Companies only get away with fucking people because most people never make any attempt to report bad behaviour or know their rights.
Consumer apathy and ignorance is the number one thing that enables corporate misbehaviour.
It doesn't cost anything to file a response to an opposition. Just deny all their assertions. I've been through the process for my own Trademark and was willing to fight a large gaming company up until discovery without a lawyer.
That said, you need to do your homework if you try this and it is a bit time consuming, but it was just a few hours of work for me to research and talk to a couple of trademark lawyers (for free) to get a very basic assessment of what was happening and how common opposition filing is. Responded on my own and the Trademark office was surprised that I had no lawyer.
BTW, filing an opposition is easy and costs almost nothing to do, so why wouldn't an existing trademark holder do it?
Did you win your case? I’m going through something similar and was about to give up hope based on advice from my lawyer, because he convinced me the company I’m up against would continue to appeal, easily justifying the legal expense to shareholders about “protecting the brand”. I’m willing to put in some time and effort to win, so maybe I should take my shot.
After I filed my response, we did two more calls and finally settled. I just had to change 3 words in the description which I initially offered prior to their opposition. You should definitely not stop at a simple opposition.
Most oppositions never go to a full blown trial. The trademark office really pushes for the parties to settle their claims.
I had a strong case though so I was certain I could defend my trademark application.
The lawyers will tell you the best case and worst case of any action, so I would definitely get other opinions then just relying on the word of one lawyer.
Because that's the way a lot of people want it just in case they become less embarrassed millionaires some day. You can never be sure!
Silicon Valley is a nexus for this kind of thinking but at least there's a decent chance of doing that if you're not stupid about it and just spend a decade or two here jumping from one failed startup to another until one sticks. But be very careful, the virtue police here claim they don't like job hoppers (as they themselves jump from one position to another).
As long as you're an at-will employee you owe nothing more than at-will loyalty. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise unless they pony up the cash upfront.
I am happy to throw stones. I resent FANG for hoovering up the best talent just to keep them on payroll, lest they actually have to compete or acquire competition for many billions of dollars later, much cheaper to keep them busy on internal tooling.
Funny that Microsoft now owns both parties of the lawsuit.