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The Courts Government Your Rights Online News

Litigation Against The Mobilix Mobile Unix Website 21

Posted by timothy from the filthy-luchre dept.
powerset writes: "Mobilix has just posted a news item describing a legal challenge from the holder of the 'Asterix' and 'Obelix' trademarks. Despite widespread use of the '-ix' suffix as documented in the note, a quarter million dollars in damages and prison time are being threatened, and the note also mentions a possible connection to the SuSE case."
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Litigation Against The Mobilix Mobile Unix Website More

Litigation Against The Mobilix Mobile Unix Website

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  • oh, right, i get it. underdog OS's for non-mainstream technology which have common names undercut the obsolete Belgian cartooning market. yes, of course. . . heck, why don't we just scrap all that is Unix; a good idea and it was panning out for quite a while and all, but gosh darn it, look how unfair it is!

    Final Fantasy IX will be next!

  • In other news (Score:3, Funny)

    by tunah ( 530328 ) <sam AT krayup DOT com> on Wednesday January 09, 2002 @01:11AM (#2807992) Homepage
    In other news, Simpsons creator Matt Groening announced plans to sue all Bartenders, margerine manufacturers, and Grampas.
  • time for the battle royale! lets get ready to rumble...!
  • This is fucking ridiculix!
  • Mobilix sounds like a legit software organization, and "Asterix and Obelix" are cartoon-like characters in both comic strips and movies.

    How could the consumer either a) confuse the labels or b) associate one with the other upon the slightest amount of information?

    Mobilix isn't going to start selling Mobilix dolls or Mobilix action figures, neither are they going to be producing full length features - likewise, Asterix isn't going to suddenly claim Unix market share or Obelix become the biggest distro since Debian.

    Seems like the most ludicrous attempt at legal action against an internet organization or company yet.
  • My mouth is hanging open in astonishment. This is too stupid to be true.

    I mean what can you say? I've never heard of such gall (pun intended).

    Someone is actually trying to claim a trademark on a suffix. Whoops! I can't use that word, it has an "-ix" in it!

    Are the Europeans trying to be more ridicuously litigious than the Americans?

    I hope that there are sanctions in Europe for frivolous lawsuits.
    • Someone is actually trying to claim a trademark on a suffix. Whoops! I can't use that word, it has an "-ix" in it!

      I assume that it's based on the similarity between Mobilix and Obelix, not just the -ix suffix.

    • Re:... (Score:2, Informative)

      by dvoosten ( 261568 )
      In Europe there is a very clear seperation between trademark classes. This lawsuit is going nowhere because of the fact that it is clear mobilix has no intention of competing with Uderzo. So in the trademark class of names relating to computer technology, Mobilix was the first to claim it and is therefor the owner. There are ofcourse murkier examples. For instance, a Dutch television station wanted to change their name to ME, but that name was trademark by a clothing line. The clothing line sued and won because the television station often marketed baseball caps and t-shirt with their logo on it. This is a reasonable claim. The Mobilix claim is just ridiculous. Not only because it's a different trade mark class, but also because Uderzo has had more then enough time in the past to sue Unix, Posix, Ultrix, etc. and has made no move to do so. They cannot justify why Mobilix should be a worse threat. If the Mobilix people let this come before the European appeal court, they will win, no doubt about it.
      • Yes, but in the meantime, Mobilix must suffer significant legal bills in fighting this frivolous suit.

        What are the sanctions that can be applied against the initiator of this farce?

  • Is this yet another frivolous lawsuit? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by hectorh ( 113198 ) on Wednesday January 09, 2002 @02:29AM (#2808137) Homepage

    What I don't understand is how can they argue trademark infrigement, when there are no characters by the name of mobilix in the Asterix and Obelix books list of characters [asterix.tm.fr].

    This just sounds to me like an attempt to bully small organizations into submission.

    This is quoted from an interview with Albert Uderzo ( one of the creators of Asterix and Obelix ):

    "For us, like for most French people, what we know of the Gauls begins with Vercingetorix. The 'RIX' at the end of his name means 'king' and is 'REX' in Latin and 'RIX' in Celtic. Not all Gaulish names end with 'IX', but we thought it would be fun to remind people of Vercingetorix. And it was also easier for us to have the Romans with names ending in 'US' and the Gauls with names in 'IX'

    After that we used a similar formula for foreigners - using 'OS' or 'IS' for Greeks. We always enjoyed coming up with names from expressions and puns. This made it a very difficult job for our translators, because they had to create their own names so they would be funny in their language."

    If you don't know much about Asterix and Obelix, it is a comic book about a gaulish (french) village that resists the assault of the roman empire. It was originally written by Rene Goscinny and drawn by Albert Uderzo. Sadly, Rene Goscinny passed away November 5, 1977.

    After that point, Albert Uderzo has become the principal writer and he no longer draws the comics.

    It is my opinion that ever since, the quality of the comic has decreased

    My suspicion is that this lawsuit is one last feeble attempt by Uderzo to make more money. See the following quote of the same interview:

    "Together with three friends, we had created a small publishing company, that was just managing to get by. We didn't make much money, but we sure had a lot of fun."

    Notice that he mentions financial issues twice in a row, which in my opinion expresses his biggest worry.

    I also find it interesting that in the entire official Asterix and Obelix web site [asterix.tm.fr] there is not one single mention of Rene Goscinny, other than on the copyright line at the page footer, and that he refers to Rene Goscinny as one of his "...three friends,..." What are they hiding???.

    Does anyone have access to the lawsuit documents? I am very interested in reading why they think they deserve to win this lawsuit.

    • My suspicion is that this lawsuit is one last feeble attempt by Uderzo to make more money.

      More likely, some PHB in the publishing company.

      But Goscinny gets several mentions in the interview with Uderzo, and Uderzo represents him as equal partner in most of the A&O work in that interview.
  • Ix simply gives them justification. Europeans refer to their handheld phones as "mobile", as opposed to "cell". Any site with mobile in the name is bound to have some contention, no matter how frivolous.
  • that went by the name of Mobilix here in Denmark but who changed their name to Orange about a year ago. In fact, maybe this was why they changed their name. Don't believe all the bullshit about them just wanting to use the same name all over the world!

    er, or something like that ;)
  • If Asterix
    Had Mobilix
    Just think of
    All the benefix!

    'Course if Obelix
    Had Mobilix
    All the tech-support-nix
    Would be pulling
    Out their battle-ix...

    [pause]
    (Sotto voce) - That's the plural of battle-axe...
    [/pause]

    ...And removing his appendix!
  • This shows what a morally bankrupt, litigious society Americans live in. The underlying cause is the fact that they have no sense of history. And most of them are fat and obnoxious, too.

    What? This is happening in Europe? Oh, oh, excusez moi.
  • Frank Herbert. The planet IX in Dune. The Technology planet.

    Funny.

  • Anyone remember... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by russotto ( 537200 )
    ...The Haagen-Dazs versus Fruzen-Gladze case? (I may have spelled both names wrong) In it a court ruled sensibly that Haagen-Dazs's trademark did NOT cover all possible made-up vaugely scandanavian-sounding names.

    This case is on the same level.
    • That case was about something called "trade dress," not trademark. Some background here [adlaw.com]. Haagen-Dazs claimed their "Swedish themed" advertising/packaging/promotional campaign was being ripped off. They could've conceivably won, as you can protect that sort of thing. The court ruled in that case that Fruzen Gladje's Swedish theme was different enough that "only the most obtuse consumer" would be confused.

      That "obtuse consumer" standard sure sounds like a good one. If this were a perfect world, it would apply to this Moblix case as well.

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