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Godzilla Getting Ready to Stomp Mozilla?
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Aug 13, 2002 01:46 PM
from the we-own-your-formative dept.
from the we-own-your-formative dept.
mrBlond writes: "Doing the rounds: Seems like Toho [jp], 'the owner of all rights in and to the trademark and service mark GODZILLA [jp]
and the GODZILLA characters,' is coming down on Davezilla for use of 'zilla' in his domain name and his dragon logo, to set a precedent before attacking Mozilla."
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so what? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:so what? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:so what? (Score:5, Funny)
Or not. [stomptokyo.com]
Parent
As reported on the register. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:As reported on the register. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:As reported on the register. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Text in case of /.ing (Score:5, Informative)
Goodbye little dragon guy!
[Blog] - Davezilla @ 07:07:43 pm
re: DAVEZILLA.COM
Dear Mr. Linabury:
We represent Toho Co., Ltd ("Toho") in intellectual property matters. Toho is the owner of all rights in and to the trademark and service mark GODZILLA and the GODZILLA characters. In addition, the name "GODZILLA" and the likeness of Toho's GODZILLA character are federally registered trademarks belonging to Toho. Copies of Toho's U.S. Registrations for GODZILLA and the GODZILLA character image are enclosed.
[Omitted long, dull paragraph about the history of Toho...]
It has come to our attention that you have incorporated the "ZILLA" portion of our client's GODZILLA marks in the name of your "DAVEZILLA.COM" domain name, and that you have included a "reptile-like" character as well as a "monster-like" character, which you refer to as "GODZILLA", on your website accesible through "DAVEZILLA.COM." Please be advised that your use of the GODZILLA mark constitutes a trademark infringement and confuses consumers and the public into believing that your "GODZILLA" character originates from Toho, which it does not. Moreover, your use of the "ZILLA" formative along with imagery associated with GODZILLA is likely to cause the users of your site to believe that the "DAVEZILLA.COM" website is either associated with, authorized by, or sponsored by our client, and demonstrates an attempt by you to trade on the goodwill built up by our client. As such, we request that you remove the objectionable imagery and reference to GODZILLA from your website to eliminate any likelihood of confusion and posibility of an inaccurate affiliation with Toho and GODZILLA.
We look forward to receiving your prompt reply, with a statement of your intentions, no later than August 16, 2002. Thank you for your anticipated cooperation.
Very truly yours,
SEYFARTH SHAW
Jill A. Jacobs
Wow. Guess the little dragon at the top has to go bye-bye. At least they are letting me keep the domain name. A few inaccuracies: I have, until today, never mentioned Godzilla, nor do I have any imagery of him on this site. Nor do I refer to my logo as Godzilla. It's always been, "That little dragon guy." Could have been a lot worse. Expect a new no changes to the banner and changes a tweak to the colophon. I'm not giving in.
Original version (Score:4, Funny)
Goodbye little dragon guy!
[Blog] - Davezilla @ 07:07:43 pm
re: DAVEZILLA.COM
Dear Mr. Linabury:
What happen ? Someone set up us the trademark infringement ! Take off every 'zilla' ! You know what you doing.
For great justice,
SEYFARTH SHAW
Jill A. Jacobs
Parent
ALL YOUR FUNNY ARE BELONG TO THE MESOZOIC ERA! (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
The letter about the *other* half... (Score:4, Funny)
Dear Mr. Minister:
It has come to our attention that you have incorporated the "GOD" portion of our client's GODZILLA marks in the name of your "Church of God" church name, and that you have included an unstoppable all-powerful being, which you refer to as "GOD", on your publications. Please be advised that your use of the "GOD" formative along with imagery associated with GODZILLA is likely to cause the users of your site to believe that the "Church of God" website is either associated with, authorized by, or sponsored by our client, and demonstrates an attempt by you to trade on the goodwill built up by our client.
Parent
God (Score:5, Funny)
Re:God (Score:5, Funny)
Plus, I would assume that God would settle out of court. (Lightning rod anyone?)
Parent
Not sure if this matters (Score:5, Insightful)
Almost every graphical web browser... (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Actually time advantage is to Mozilla... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: Actually time advantage is to Mozilla... (Score:4, Insightful)
You know what that is? Stupid. It means its become more efficient and cheap to succumb to threats than to see issues through to their proper and (I can't stress this enough) correct conclusion. I have no feelings either which way in this case; what frusterates the FUCK out of me is that we'll likely never get to see who's right, in court.
Personally, I'm waiting for the laywer industry to reform its traditional garb and start dressing more like jocks and repo men.
Parent
Wowzilla. (Score:5, Funny)
zilla != Godzilla (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:zilla != Godzilla (Score:5, Informative)
There's been no activity on the bug for some time.
You definately have a good point about names, I don't think they have a foot to stand on when it comes to the name alone.
Joseph Elwell.
Parent
Re:zilla != Godzilla (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:zilla != Godzilla (Score:3, Insightful)
BG
Re:zilla != Godzilla (Score:3)
Quit reaching, and admit its a good claim.
Sure, going after a non-profit project is low
down, but its still in their rights.
Trademark is not copyright. They have to prove that potential customers of theirs are likely to confuse the mark Mozilla with their Godzilla mark. Fairly difficult, I think. As to the image, pictures of lizards and dinosaurs have been around for a long time. The fact that they have not complained before this will count heavily against them, too.
No more Green Mozilla. (Score:5, Informative)
joe.
Too Late (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Too Late (Score:3, Informative)
As WWE campaign famously says "get the F out"
Re:Too Late (Score:5, Informative)
However, since 18-July-1997, the status has been "An opposition is now pending at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board." There has not been a resolution and so "Mozilla" is not a registered trademark.
Parent
God forbid! (Score:5, Insightful)
It must be terrible for them, all that free publicity.
Of course, to retain control of the trademark it might be necessary to come to some licensing agreement, but trying to stamp out the use of -zilla is a serious case of shooting oneself in the foot. Hormel wised up about Spam; you'd think these folks would learn from that example.
Cheers
-b
also (Score:3, Funny)
Forget Mothra... (Score:5, Funny)
New name / mascot needed. (Score:5, Funny)
I recommend the Mozilla project change its mascot to another cute character ...
Something more approachable, but still computer related ... a mouse would do nicely...
Since the original name was derived from Mosaic, and the NCSA project is shelved and Spyglass is no more, "Mosaic Mouse" would do nicely...
OK, sing it with me...
Not a big deal. (Score:4, Interesting)
For the most part, however, I doubt that people would think that dave was endorsed by the Godzilla trademark owners. Less so, Mozilla which doesn't actually use the "Godzilla" name. There's nothing wrong with parody, or flattery by mimicry. I don't think that there's much reason for fear, as long as the Mozilla group doesn't try to branch into the horror-movie genre.
probably too late (Score:4, Insightful)
Almost sounds as if Toho got bought by the same people who are now claiming the jpeg patent.
Oh Shit (Score:5, Funny)
Not going to fly. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not a lawyer, though, so anyone with a legal education and a better angle on the subject, feel free to correct.
What ever happened to "tradespace"? (Score:5, Interesting)
But what ever happened to the concept of a restricted space within which trademarks are (were?) supposed to operate? I had understood that trademarks were only protected within the same general "realm" of a product -- which is how we've got Excel cars and Excel spreadsheets.
It's seemed to me, with the advent of the modern internet, that all these distinctions have been thrown away, and that the courts are allowing that diminished distinction. So Palm has to stop calling their Pilot a "Pilot" because a pen company complains.
Does anyone know what exactly is the deal here? Have domain-name disputes finally opened the door for a single, universal, all-encompasing product namespace?
If someone wants to call their browser Mozilla (or even Godzilla), then they should be able to, because the chances of someone confusing a web browser with a big lizard are pretty darned slim.
Or have I misunderstood this aspect of (US) trademark law all along?
It's Gojira you moron (Score:4, Informative)
Anyway, the zilla could be an allusion to jirasu (to irritate)
Nonsense (Score:3, Funny)
Nonsense, everyone knows that Godzilla originated in the depths of time and crawled out of the Pacific after the U.S. nuked the Bikini Islands.
Moreover, your use of the "ZILLA" formative ... is likely to cause the users of your site to believe that the "DAVEZILLA.COM" website is either associated with, authorized by, or sponsored by our client
This is what is known as a portmanteau word. That is a word that conveys meaning by using parts of other words that have definite associations. Words such as smog (smoke and fog), or, more inline with davezilla, monicagate (Monica and Watergate), infomercial (info and commercial), and Linux (Linus and Unix). Whether this can be construed as trademark infringement is somebody else's call, but I rather think that The Almighty (God) and Homer (Trademark holder of the monster named Scylla) might have something to say about this.
Lindows (Score:4, Insightful)
Mozilla has nothing to do with Godzilla. Godzilla is a fictional character, Mozilla is a web browser and a user-agent. The term "Mozilla" as a user-agent has been around since the early days of Netscape. My guess is that any attempt to sue the Mozilla organization for trademark violation would be laughed out of court.
It's Gojira nimnertz !!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
God-zilla is an American Eenglish bastardization. They should at least after the right fucking phoneme.
how rame.
Word existed before Godzilla (Score:5, Informative)
Also, consider that Microsoft didn't win againts Lindows and that's a much closer match since it even pertains to the same kind of item or good e.g. an Operating System
I think they should pull an Apple... (Score:3, Funny)
Mozilla was first, I think (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm no trademark attorney, but I'm guessing that, since they're not claiming in the trademark registration that the mark consists of the word + the monster, they don't have a leg to stand on with *zilla claims. Also, it doesn't appear they stopped Bugzilla [uspto.gov] (the cleaning agent, not the software) from registering its trademark in 2000. Milton Bradley has also owned a trademark on Eggzilla [uspto.gov] since 1987.
All in all, they have a lot of fish to fry if they're going to try to reserve *zilla as their own, including multiple existing or pending trademarks. (Budzilla, Rodzilla, and Speedzilla are all currently published for opposition.)
I love the Trademark Electronic Search System...
Re:Mozilla was first, I think (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Hard to argue (Score:5, Insightful)
This would be roughly equivalent to the owners of the Chef Boyardee trademark claiming ownership of "Chef" when used in conjunction with any food product:P
Trademarks are NOT ownership of a word. It is ownership of a brand. Hence, I can call my product "Kleenex" if I'm selling candy. If I'm selling tissue, however, you can bet Kimberly-Clark would come knocking.
Parent
Re:Hard to argue (Score:5, Informative)
'zilla' is a lot more like "Boyardee" than like "Chef". I certainly can't think of a lot of uses of it before Godzilla showed up.
Some marks are deemed "famous", such that they get to reserve the whole field. This may be a bad design, but it's how the laws are written.
Consider this: If I produce a candy called "Ford Bubblegum", no one is going to think it's a car, or that I'm doing it with a license from the car company.
On the other hand, if I sold kitchen aprons labeled "Boyardee", someone might figure that, while it's not soup, it was clearly trying to take advantage of their fame.
Here's the question: Would a typical user, confronted with a large dinosaur-like thing that walks on its back legs and has things down its back, and breathes fire, and has a name ending in "zilla", be likely to infer an association between that product and Godzilla?
Yes, the user would.
Thus, it's probably a violation.
IANAL, but for fuck's sake, people, *THINK*. This looks exactly like trying to take advantage of someone else's product name and reputation to make your own product look cooler; in this case, trying to take the "big unstoppable monster" aspect of Godzilla and apply it to a browser. It even shows the traditional fire-breathing thing in the splash screen!
Parent
Maybe right, however (Score:4, Interesting)
This tells me that Mozilla has become common enough in its own right as distinct from Godzilla. The most they could do would be to try to force a change of mascot, much as it would be funny to see them try to argue "Your honor, we submit that the user agent string in Internet Explorer is in violation of our trademark rights, and demand 1% of all Windows sales revenue."
Parent
Re:Hard to argue (Score:5, Informative)
If you think so, just try marketing a bandage called "Band-Aid" - Johnson & Johnson's well-funded legal department would be on your ass directly. Similarly, Kimberly-Clark ain't gonna let you sell "Kleenex" facial tissues. Xerox won't let you market "Xerox" machines. The Thermos company will lay the legal hurt on you if you try to sell vacuum insulated bottles by that name.
The only former trademarks I can think of that have actually lost their protection are "Asprin" and "Heroin," which were both US trademarks belonging to Bayer AG until 1919 when the IP rights to these two "wonder drugs" were ceded in the Treaty of Versailles, NOT because they became generic terms. Aspirin became a generic term because the trademark was stripped, not the other way around.
-Isaac
Parent
Re:Uh oh! (Score:5, Funny)
Reporter: Stop the inauguration! I just discovered our President Elect
got an F in second grade gym class!
[crows gasps; Lisa is handcuffed]
Man: In that case I sentence you to a lifetime of horror on Monster
Island. [to Lisa] Don't worry, it's just a name.
[Lisa and others are chased by fire-breathing monsters]
Lisa: He said it was just a name!
Man: What he meant is that Monster Island is actually a peninsula.
Parent
Re:Ludicrous (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes - exactly. It was
Parent
Re:Ludicrous (Score:3, Insightful)