I thought stuff like “Explain Like I’m Five” and “AMA” was proprietary to the community, or at least the Reddit community, not Reddit as a company.
I thought stuff like “Explain Like I’m Five” and “AMA” was proprietary to the community, or at least the Reddit community, not Reddit as a company.
IANAL can anyone ELI5 do they have to try and defend these trademarks? And how would that look like, going after Lemmy communities for using TIL, etc?
Could simply be a case of protecting their largest assets incase someone big really did try to replace reddit.
my understanding (I’m just a tax guy, my brother’s the IP guy) is they have to defend the trademark or they lose it to genericism and saran wrap [edit fuck it’s cellophane]. I could be wrong though.
Wouldn’t these terms being commonly used there and other places like quora, X/twitter, lemmy, etc show that they are already common terms that aren’t viable as brand identifiers of Reddit itself? Which is what trademarks are for. To reduce brand confusion and ensure people can identify a product, good and/or service and know it’s from a source they associate it with.
E.g. Coca Cola is a good example of what you think of when you see the red can, the swirl, and the font with the lettering.
You see it and you know what you’re getting quality wise, etc.
Want a hoot? Go search for coke: https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/search/search-results It’s pretty fun.
Most aren’t for soda, since you aren’t going to confuse slag with a drink.
Trademarks are just for words. Trade dress is what you’re talking about, and it’s cognizance comes from the copyright laws.
yeah, it’s why they shouldn’t have been granted as trademarks, but what do I know I’m not an IP guy.
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