[HN Gopher] Monster Energy Goes After Indie Dev for Using the Wo...
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Monster Energy Goes After Indie Dev for Using the Word 'Monster'
Author : type0
Score : 143 points
Date : 2023-04-04 20:50 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thegamer.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thegamer.com)
| Adraghast wrote:
| What's it going to take to get Hacker News commenters to stop
| perpetuating the myth that trademark holders are required to be
| litigious assholes if they don't want their trademarks to lapse?
| duxup wrote:
| Probably people posting some helpful information about that?
| Adraghast wrote:
| https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/monster
|
| Hope this helps!
| duxup wrote:
| Not really.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| This is a baffling response. You posited something very
| specific and interesting that other commenters are not
| touching on (that "must defend to retain" is exaggerated),
| but when asked about it, you responded with the same
| generic point as all the other commenters ("it's
| frivolous") - as though you had never even said the
| interesting thing in the first place.
| [deleted]
| freehorse wrote:
| But there is no logic or legal ground for trademarking the word
| "monster" or the green/white colours in a logo. It is all about
| bullying smaller companies using their much higher budget.
| asdff wrote:
| When you pay for an expensive legal team on retainer you
| probably need to get them to start bringing in money for the
| org to justify their size. From the article it seems like
| they just troll for any sort of putative copyright violation
| and just roll the dice.
| viraptor wrote:
| > need to get them to start bringing in money
|
| Suing indie game developers is not a way to do it. There's
| a good chance these lawyers need to be paid much more for
| the time of dealing with this case than the devs ever had
| available.
| asdff wrote:
| Maybe most are small fish, but maybe some are big fish
| too. Maybe catching all of these small fish gives you
| precedence when you do go up to face some big fish in the
| future, so the benefits to these costs perhaps will just
| materialize in the future.
| labrador wrote:
| A local vegetarian restaurant in Santa Cruz called themselves
| McDharma's and McDonald's made them change it. I always thought
| that was strange.
| amelius wrote:
| Were these stupid trademark laws even conceived through
| democratic means?
| vanillaicesquad wrote:
| Nowadays when you search lol its always league of legends when it
| used to be lot of laughs*. They are afraid one of this games
| becomes super popular and when you search monster on google there
| is not a single monster energy drink to be seen
|
| Edit: * or laughing out loud
| gnabgib wrote:
| I feel like you've mashed Laugh(ing) Out Loud (still the common
| usage) and the sweeter/more innocent Lots of Love (from a time
| before the internet)
| vanillaicesquad wrote:
| I am talking about what google outputs for a word. If you
| think about it Gooogle makes the battle for the meaning of a
| word more brutal than ever, as people look for words without
| context. If we were living in the old world this news would
| be insane, because whenever you would mention monster (the
| energy drink) or monsters (the game, at the game shop), the
| meaning would be clear by context.
|
| In todays world there is no context, so i think Monster (the
| energy drink) is not being as irrational as it would seem by
| the tone of this news item
| [deleted]
| rcarr wrote:
| Dungeons and Dragons are fucked
|
| \s
| clessg wrote:
| Just wait until they find out about the increasingly popular
| "Pocket Monsters" game series. It's all the kids ever talk about
| these days!
| mansion7 wrote:
| Or the classic Konami game "Monster in My Pocket" from 1992!
| user3939382 wrote:
| The reminds me of the time a friend of mine told me her polo club
| was being sued by Ralph Lauren for using the word polo. I wish I
| was kidding.
|
| * I believe there's something in trademark* law about being
| required to show some amount of effort defending your trademark.
| Maybe a lawyer can clarify. Is that getting translated by these
| corporate lawyers into harassing innocent people?
| colonwqbang wrote:
| Trademark erosion?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark#Trademark_er...
| user3939382 wrote:
| That's it
| _fat_santa wrote:
| 2030: Splunk Inc and Meta are back in court today. Splunk Inc
| is being sued by Meta of the term "metadata" in their product
| which Meta says violates their trademark.
|
| 2031: Meta sued a group of Forza Horizon 5 players today,
| arguing the group infringed on their trademark when they used
| the term "Meta Build" in a livestream.
| Moissanite wrote:
| To counteract this, we need some form of vexatious litigation
| charge for copyright and trademarks - if you try to assert
| ownership over something you obviously don't own (as decided by
| a jury), you lose the original trademark you were trying to
| protect into the public domain.
| kube-system wrote:
| The idea of punishing a mark holder by invalidating their
| mark presumes that trademarks _exist_ as a benefit to the
| mark holder.
|
| But they don't. They exist as a benefit to consumers. This
| would be a misplaced punishment.
| smolder wrote:
| Trademarks benefit both consumers and mark holders. We
| don't want consumers to be tricked into buying subpar
| counterfeits, nor do we want infringers to exploit consumer
| trust in the trademark to steal business from the mark
| holder or to undermine that trust.
| kube-system wrote:
| A trademark _could_ benefit the company, but that's a
| secondary downstream effect, not a requirement for a
| valid mark. Trademarks for horrible and awful products
| with terrible reputations are still entirely valid
| despite not being a benefit to the mark holder m.
|
| On the other hand, trademarks _must_ provide identifying
| benefit to consumers, in order to be valid. Because this
| is the primary _legal_ purpose and justification.
| Moissanite wrote:
| I presume your point here is that a trademark represents
| "authenticity", which is valuable to consumers. That's a
| fair concern, but clearly a large part of the benefit does
| in fact accrue to the holder - otherwise they wouldn't
| spend a cent protecting it.
| kube-system wrote:
| There's nothing in _copyright law_ that pertains to trademark.
| They're entirely separate things.
|
| But yes, trademarks can be invalidated if you do not defend
| them. Because the point of a trademark is to be a unique
| identifier for a particular good or service, to protect
| consumers against fraud or misrepresentation. If it isn't a
| unique identifier because others are using it, then there is
| not a consumer protection reason to provide this exclusive use
| anymore.
|
| I think people often miss sight that the reason for a trademark
| isn't the same as copyright. It's not a protection of a
| creative work. It's a protection of fair commerce.
| user3939382 wrote:
| I meant trademark sorry. Personally I'm aware of the
| difference (having owned both) but it is a common point of
| confusion.
| usrusr wrote:
| And yet I've never heard a single word about any trademark
| issues suffered by the maker of a certain word processor due
| to insufficient lashing out against everybody who makes
| unrelated use of the word they happen to use as their product
| name.
| neilv wrote:
| I don't understand how the beverage company could rightfully
| object to any game title like "Dark Deception: Monsters &
| Mortals".
|
| It sounds like countless other games, and I can't imagine it
| being mistaken for a beverage.
|
| Monsters are an idea going back in stories for millennia before
| the beverage brand existed.
|
| Board games, and then video games, were inspired by these stories
| of monsters, to make interactive experiences around the ideas.
|
| And the respective logos I just saw don't really look similar to
| my eye, other than both "horror-y/monster-y", but in different
| ways.
|
| If the truth of situation turns out to be as stupid as is
| alleged, and Internet pitchforks are required, be aware that the
| Monster "M" logo _does_ look much like a pitchfork (but again,
| the generic pitchfork came first, and is a widely used idea)...
| cableshaft wrote:
| > Board games, and then video games, were inspired by these
| stories of monsters, to make interactive experiences around the
| ideas.
|
| Yep, BoardGameGeek has 10 pages of board games with 'Monster'
| in its title. They going to go after all of them?
|
| Just since 2022 there's been: King of Monster Island, Monster
| Hunter World, Monsters on Board, Meeples & Monsters,
| Monsterpocalypse, Silver Coin: Age of Monster Hunters, Monster
| Pit, Cube Monster, Monster Inn, Funkoverse Strategy Game:
| Universal Monsters, Monster Rock, Shadows: Heroes & Monsters,
| Monsters and the Things That Destroy Them, The Witcher: Old
| World - Monster Trail, Boss Monster Big Box, Monsters, Ichabod
| Jones: Monster Hunter, Monster Lands 2, The Night Cage: Monster
| Pack, Monster Marathon, Nine Worlds: Creatures and Monsters,
| Monster Science, Monster Munch, Beautiful Monsters,
| Monstersuppe, Monster Capture Race, Monsters Messed Up My Room,
| Hunting Monsters, Monster Hunter International, Cthulhu Wars:
| Smell Like a Monster, Stomp The Monster, Socks Monster, Monster
| Mouth, Monster Mash, Huck + Monster, Monsters & Minecarts,
| Yummy Yummy Monster Tummy, Ragnarok: Monster Card Collector,
| Monster Girl High School, Monsters of Loch Lomond, Making
| Monsters, Monster Zone, and a bunch of promos for the very
| popular game Kingdom Death Monster.[1]
|
| [1]:
| https://boardgamegeek.com/geeksearch.php?action=search&objec...
| jonny_eh wrote:
| In that list is Monster Hunter, a very successful and famous
| line of video games from Japanese publisher Capcom.
| asdff wrote:
| It's not that they object, its that they have a legal team.
| That team's job is to look for opportunities to take money that
| is being left on the table. Obviously this is absurd, I'm sure
| the lawyers filing the claims personally think its absurd too,
| but if there's a 1/1000th chance of a payout then its worth it
| because the lawyers for monster are on retainer anyway and
| their costs are already sunk. They are probably actively
| trolling for opportunities like this all the time, otherwise
| they'd be leaving money on the table.
| kube-system wrote:
| They're not very good lawyers if going after an indie game is
| their idea of a money grab.
|
| They're more likely just conservative IP lawyers concerned
| about dilution.
| asdff wrote:
| They probably go after this and a hundred other things at
| once which they can do with their size. I'm imagining a
| madlibs lawsuit template they have a paralegal or even a
| computer script fill in details when a vaguely relevant
| target is identified. As the Canadian philosopher W.
| Gretzky said, you miss 100% the shots you don't take.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| IANAL but I thought this type of action is used to argue in
| the future that the trademark holder is vigorously defending
| its use, even if it seems frivolous.
| failrate wrote:
| Trademark holders only need to defend their trademark in
| the product categories they have registered for that
| trademark. So, obviously a beverage with the word "monster"
| would be infringing for the drink trademark, they likely
| should not pursue for the games product category. I looked
| up their trademark on TESS: https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/
| showfield?f=doc&state=4805:lk... It is extremely broad,
| including every conceivable product category but is
| registered for "Monster Energy"
| Pulcinella wrote:
| Yeah I am of the opinion that if you are going to name your
| brand "Monster" (or any other one word name) you are just going
| to have to deal with other people using it. This is like moving
| next to a massive international airport that's been there for
| 50 years and complaining about the noise. Sorry buddy but at
| this point it's on you.
| duxup wrote:
| Just searched the App Store... lots of "Monster" games out there.
| Many have scary "monster" like logos.
| umvi wrote:
| Doesn't Bethesda do the same for the word "scrolls"? What's the
| most loaded game title using generic words that would tick off
| the most companies?
|
| "Monster Scrolls: Backcountry Metadata"
| toasteros wrote:
| Yep! Mojang were putting out a game simply titled Scrolls and
| Bethesda didn't like that, because apparently you can confuse
| 'Scrolls' for 'The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim'.
| failrate wrote:
| In this case, the product category is the same. While I agree
| that Elder Scrolls and Scrolls are distinct, it is at least
| possibly infringing.
| reiichiroh wrote:
| Don't they remember what happened to Monster Cable?
| mikestew wrote:
| I presume fellow trademark troll Monster Cables has struck a
| truce with Monster Energy?
|
| Much like Monster Cables, if you think there might be confusion
| between a video game and your chemical water, then I am confident
| that your product tastes like ass.
| Lio wrote:
| Monster Energy, it's got electrolytes. Which as we all know, is
| what plants crave.
|
| This lawsuit is the definition of frivolous.
|
| It's the dumest trademark case since Conde Nast tried to suit a
| pub in the village of Vogue, Cornwall. That pub now has a
| framed apology on its wall.
| type0 wrote:
| It's a monstrosity of a lawsuit, all pun intended
| TylerE wrote:
| I wouldn't be so quick to jump to that conclusion.
|
| Monster has their fingers in many, many pies, from clothing
| to live events, esports (very relevant to a video game).
|
| Here are two relevant marks, out of their hundreds:
| https://trademarks.justia.com/862/19/monster-86219332.html ht
| tps://trademarks.justia.com/877/98/monstergaming-87798827....
| Legion wrote:
| A quick search of Steam reveals a long list of games that use the
| name Monster in their title even more prominently than Dark
| Deception: Monsters & Mortals does.
| nicholsonpk wrote:
| To expand on your idea, I tried searching "monster energy"
| thinking that maybe a fantasy game using an energy currency
| would show up this way, but I didn't see Dark Deception:
| Monsters & Mortals in about the first 200 results.
|
| Then I decided to check out their page directly and I now
| believe this wholly comes down to the font used in the logo:
| https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1266690/header...
|
| I personally don't think it's close enough to cause issues but
| clearly Monster Energy does.
| neilv wrote:
| Only loosely-related, but a little HN-ish...
|
| A long time ago, the "trademark enforcement team" of a certain
| FAANG sent me a legal threats letter, about a domain name I'd
| registered.
|
| The domain name had been intended for a satirical critique of
| early social media proto-influencer behavior, and couldn't be
| mistaken for a brand of the company.
|
| I'd lost interest in writing the site, but, after some back&forth
| with them, I didn't like that the company I'd always liked was
| trying to strongarm domain names away from people. I thought this
| might be culture runaway from the founders' intentions.
|
| So, I initiated a transfer of the domain name to the old
| university email address of their co-founder, and told them
| they'd have to ask him for it. And something about this being an
| opportunity for discussing don't-be-evil.
| traskjd wrote:
| One of the issues in TM law is that if you don't defend it,
| folks can claim you're not using it.
|
| Leads to perverse outcomes at times, especially in orgs big
| enough to have folks full time employed looking at such
| matters.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| There is a limit though. Always consider "how would this look
| in front of a judge". There should be a cost paid for being
| overly litigious in this regard.
| unyttigfjelltol wrote:
| It's more like Xerox probably sort of liked that people
| viewed them as interchangeable with the act of
| photocopying, but eventually this had textbook consequences
| for their ability to prevent people from using their name
| for things they didn't like.
|
| I personally would have suggested offering you a license to
| use the web address, but for whatever reason that ilk of
| lawyers prefer antisocial methodologies.
| perlpimp wrote:
| thats the thing about trademarks you have to defend them afaik
| otherwise they are worthless. I would venture these stupid suits
| are there in case some drink company will make a monster drink
| the defence would be better. ianal
| macintux wrote:
| > A trademark owner doesn't need to take enforcement action
| against all infringement if it can be shown that the owner
| perceived the infringement to be minor and inconsequential.
| This is designed to prevent owners from continually being tied
| up in litigation for fear of cancellation.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark
| dalmo3 wrote:
| > perceived the infringement to be minor and inconsequential
|
| What if there's no infringement at all? As is clearly the
| case here.
| macintux wrote:
| I considered pointing that out: this suit seems absolutely
| unnecessary, but as with most of us here, ianal.
| ncallaway wrote:
| > thats the thing about trademarks you have to defend them
| afaik otherwise they are worthless.
|
| Well, that's what _lawyers_ often say about trademark law. But,
| then again, their advice to to pay lawyers more money to deal
| with the situation.
|
| The reality is not nearly so cut and dried. You _do_ have to
| police a trademark to some extent, and you _can_ lose it for
| not policing it. So, it 's not like the lawyers are _lying_.
| But any lawyer recommending action like this to "protect your
| trademark" is greatly exaggerating the risk in order to
| increase their billable hours.
| LesZedCB wrote:
| there was a similarly ridiculous set of trademark cases with a
| common usage word with the online retailer backcountry.com
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backcountry.com#Lawsuits
|
| glad this dev is fighting and hope they win. i get the deal with
| trademark protection but seriously, this kind of shit is beyond
| inane.
| zahrc wrote:
| It baffles me how screwed the system is.
|
| It's an exaggeration, but you have to be genuinely afraid to
| found a company with Apple in their name. "Apple Farm" might
| get sued by Apple.
|
| There should be a better process that involves a neutral party
| reviewing the claim and do sanity check if everyday names and
| items are used, before it actually becomes a lawsuit.
|
| But instead we let the bullies win, because they have the
| money.
| viraptor wrote:
| The judicial system is (supposed to be) that neutral party.
| You're trying to reinvent the judge/jury.
| kashunstva wrote:
| However, in lieu of neutralizing the massive financial
| disparities between parties, the judicial system as it
| exists today amplifies their effects.
| failrate wrote:
| You can trademark a common word, but you are limited for the
| product categories in which you have a product in commerce. So,
| Apple Computers has no justification to pursue trademark claims
| for fruit farms. This story is notable, because it is an
| overreach by Monster Energy.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| there's a lot of situations where a trademark owner has to go
| through the motions of challenging a similar trade identity,
| because the failure to do so could have negative implications in
| future litigation, allowing infringers to claim that the lack of
| defense amounted to constructive abandonment.
|
| https://www.ce9.uscourts.gov/jury-instructions/node/235
| pxc wrote:
| If you want to show the developer your support, you can pick up
| the game for just five bucks on Steam.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Next: Garpax Records goes after Monster Energy, based on
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_Mash
| schiffern wrote:
| Or Warner Bros Records:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_(R.E.M._album)
|
| Great album, incidentally.
| LesZedCB wrote:
| there's always a bigger fish ~ Qui-Gon Jinn
| m463 wrote:
| Wonder if the creators of The Pod should go after apple:
|
| "Pod is a series of digital guitar amplifier modelers from Line
| 6."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pod_(amp_modeler)
|
| I suspect Apple legal goes after lots of "pod" things but
| doesn't kick this sleeping dog.
| chankstein38 wrote:
| Dang I was just making that joke but you beat me to it haha
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Like some design teams, some legal teams also have to justify
| their existence with make work.
|
| I'm just being a zealous advocate!
| nhatcher wrote:
| Good thing mathematicians aren't making a y money:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_group
| chankstein38 wrote:
| What in the world? I thought trademarks and copyright law were
| based on market and context? Now just using the word monster is
| too much for Monster Energy? They're lucky Bobby Pickett let them
| use the word Monster for their chemical water company if these
| things can be applied this broadly...
| schiffern wrote:
| >I thought trademarks were based on market and context?
|
| They are.
|
| Monster Energy holds trademark SN 97273630,[0] which covers:
|
| "Downloadable virtual goods in the field of beverages, food,
| supplements, sports, gaming, music, and apparel"
|
| ...among many other things.
|
| [0] (basic search for 97273630, change "field" dropdown to
| serial number) https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/search
| thfuran wrote:
| Since when is "beverages, food, supplements, sports, gaming,
| music, and apparel" a field?
| JohnFen wrote:
| They're different categories. When you register a
| trademark, you specify which categories the trademark
| applies in. Those are the ones Monster chose.
|
| An interesting side-note -- a company actually has to be
| using the trademark in commerce in the specified categories
| in order to qualify for trademark protection. This implies
| that Monster has products on the market of each type in the
| list.
| thfuran wrote:
| >They're different categories.
|
| I quite agree, which is why I'd expect them to be
| referred to as fields rather than field.
| burnte wrote:
| Yeah, a good lawyer will actually be able to get Monster to
| settle, or at least win in court. This is a huge reach, no
| judge will ever say games and drinks are too closely related.
| onion2k wrote:
| Except... Monster sponsor a lot of gaming things, so they
| might have applied for and been granted ownership of
| "Monster" as a trademark, designmark, and copyright within
| the gaming market as well. Also, I _think_ there 's at least
| one Monster branded supercross video game. They also have
| https://twitter.com/MonsterGaming
|
| Suggesting they only have drinks interests is not correct.
| jackmott wrote:
| [dead]
| failrate wrote:
| They registered "monster energy" and included games in the
| sea of producr categories: https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/s
| howfield?f=doc&state=4805:lk...
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(page generated 2023-04-04 23:00 UTC)