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The Courts Emulation (Games)

The Delta Emulator Is Changing Its Logo After Adobe Threatened It (theverge.com) 56

Posted by BeauHD from the legal-threats dept.
After Adobe threatened legal action, the Delta Emulator said it'll abandon its current logo for a different, yet-to-be-revealed mark. The issue centers around Delta's stylized letter "D", which the digital media giant says is too similar to its stylized letter "A". The Verge reports: On May 7th, Adobe's lawyers reached out to Delta with a firm but kindly written request to go find a different icon, an email that didn't contain an explicit threat or even use the word infringement -- it merely suggested that Delta might "not wish to confuse consumers or otherwise violate Adobe's rights or the law." But Adobe didn't wait for a reply. On May 8th, one day later, Testut got another email from Apple that suggested his app might be at risk because Adobe had reached out to allege Delta was infringing its intellectual property rights.

"We responded to both Apple and Adobe explaining our icon was a stylized Greek letter delta -- not an A -- but that we would update the Delta logo anyway to avoid confusion," Testut tells us. The icon you're seeing on the App Store now is just a temporary one, he says, as the team is still working on a new logo. "Both the App Store and AltStore versions have been updated with this temporary icon, but the plan is to update them to the final updated logo with Delta 1.6 once it's finished."
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The Delta Emulator Is Changing Its Logo After Adobe Threatened It More

The Delta Emulator Is Changing Its Logo After Adobe Threatened It

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  • Icons too simple (Score:4, Insightful)

    by war4peace ( 1628283 ) on Saturday May 18, 2024 @02:05AM (#64480835)

    Look, I get both parties' arguments, but logos THAT simple should not be legally trademarked.
    I mean, how about someone trademarking an icon with a "+" and threatening legal action against everyone who uses a "+" in their logos. It's ridiculous.

    • That's the same issue with anything that is "minimalistic". Most of Apple's products, for example. They've essentially trade marked the absence of distinguishing features.

      • consider.
        what do adobe products do.
        what does the delta emulator product do.
        then there is the delta airlines verses delta facets lawsuit.
        not many people go to a plumbing supply to buy airplane tickets.
        not many people use adobe products to play a game.
        but adobe does have an interesting point about how both logos look.
        then there is a distinctive look between the alpha character and the delta character.
        one interesting idea for delta emulator is to move the break in the triangle to the center of the base.
        which w

        • one interesting idea for delta emulator is to move the break in the triangle to the center of the base. which would make it look more like a delta symbol.

          My thought is simply to make their new logo a mirror image of the old one with the gap on the other side.

    • You can threaten all you want, the reality is there's a narrow set of legal situations where trademark infringement of names and logos apply. No one asked you to make the simplest possible logo. Someone else did and trademarked it.

      If you're a toy company and your website background is #DA1884 you can get sued (by Mattel) simply for using that colour because something as simple as a prominently identifiable colour within a specific market is trademarkable. The idea of a logo with actual shapes in it is signi

    • Re:Icons too simple (Score:4, Informative)

      by msauve ( 701917 ) on Saturday May 18, 2024 @05:29AM (#64481007)
      >how about someone trademarking an icon with a "+" and threatening legal action against everyone who uses a "+" in their logos.

      Good luck with that, it's already internationally protected [icrc.org].

    • On the contrary - thatâ(TM)s precisely what should be trademarkable. Thereâ(TM)s a huge huge huge design space, even for simple things like this. If I asked you to come up with a minimalistic stylised A l, with no prior knowledge of this, Iâ(TM)d be amazed if you came up with anything like this.

    • I mean, how about someone trademarking an icon with a "+" and threatening legal action against everyone who uses a "+" in their logos. It's ridiculous.

      You're a little late with that example: "Judge Sides With Red Cross Over Trademark" https://www.nytimes.com/2008/0... [nytimes.com]

    • Oh C'mon. The Adobe logo is absolutely iconic (pun intended). And they've had it for a loooong time. Yeah, it's pretty minimalist, but it's also damn unique and everybody (well, everybody for values of using a computer prior to 2010) knew who that logo belonged to. Microsoft's logo has swung between dead simple and "more artsy" over the years, but their simple logo was still absolutely unique and recognizable.

      I dispute your assertion that a logo need be complex to be deserving of Trademark Protection.

    • I mean, how about someone trademarking an icon with a "+" and threatening legal action against everyone who uses a "+" in their logos.

      I'm pretty sure you can have a + symbol in a logo... Now, if you want to only have a plus symbol, then you have a problem... A problem so big it surpasses Trademark Law and travels all the way to the Geneva Convention. But, seeing as how the folks who get to have a + logo are the supreme rights holder's to it, gonna be a tad bit difficult for anyone else to claim ownership of it.

  • The delta in the logo doesn't have prominently rounded corners...

    • It will if they replace it with a lowercase delta.

    • Neither does Adobe's logo [adobe.com]. Some of their individual products' logos use a rounded variant but the corporate logo is angular with sharp corners. The Delta logo is practically identical, the main differences being background color and width of the strokes.

      IMHO, Delta should change its name as well. Neither the name nor the logo suggest "gaming" to me. Whenever I see the app on my phone it takes me a second to remember that it's a game emulator and not a rebranded Delta Airlines app.

      • *shrug*

        where I live, the law says trademark infringement exists only when there is a real risk of confusion, that is, the infringing entity's logo looks similar, and does business in the same line.

        We saw already that the "looks the same" part is dependent on changing colors and what not in one case. The delta logo from the story also looks nothing like the logo of this airline you speak of, as you can see for yourself from this screenshot I took just a few seconds ago: https://imgur.com/M5l9hp7.png [imgur.com]. What I

        • I do think they are in the same line of business, they are both emulating once good software.

        • I wasn't trying to say that the Delta emulator's logo looks anything like Delta airlines' logo, just commenting on how my brain works. I see an app named Delta with an abstract logo and my first thought is that Delta Airlines must have changed their logo. It takes me a minute to remember that, oh yeah, I downloaded a GameBoy emulator by that name, too. IANA©L but I expect that someone who is could make a decent case that when looking at an app with an abstract logo and the single word "Delta" could ea

          • just commenting on how my brain works

            Ok. I tend to emphasize colors, so I can't see "Delta airlines", or even "Adobe" when I see the blue one.

  • I'll be in the minority here (Score:5, Informative)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Saturday May 18, 2024 @02:21AM (#64480851)

    I have to say, their logo certainly does look almost identical to Adobe's.

    • I doubt you're in the minority and I guess it is one reason why they're changing it.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Calydor ( 739835 )

      Yeah, I normally consider these cases frivolous, but those are way too similar to each other.

      • Agreed. Adobe's behavior is still wrong, but it does make sense to change the logo.
        • If you think Adobe is wrong then you didn't agree because the person was saying Adobe isn't wrong. If it makes sense then they aren't wrong they are right.

    • I have to say, their logo certainly does look almost identical to Adobe's.

      Well okay, yeah, and hey, would it fool a moron in a hurry? [archive.org] IANAL and isn't this settled case law already??

      p.s. I agree with you, '93 escort wagon/326346' just in case that isn't obvious.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        I have to say, their logo certainly does look almost identical to Adobe's.

        Well okay, yeah, and hey, would it fool a moron in a hurry? [archive.org] IANAL and isn't this settled case law already??

        p.s. I agree with you, '93 escort wagon/326346' just in case that isn't obvious.

        The irony is that just a few years after their lawyer made that comment, Apple renamed iTunes to Apple Music like a moron in a hurry. :-D

    • Agreed. Before I looked at it, I thought it would be frivolous. But yeah, it is almost identical, they even used the same red color.

      Just close the triangle, like a normal delta, and pick a non-red color. Done.

    • When I switched back to slashdot from TFA in another tab; I did a bit of a double-take there because the favicon that The Verge uses themselves is pretty similar to both Delta's and Adobe's versions of the letter... just inverted.

      I mean... there are really only so many ways to stylize the Greek letter delta (Curse you slashdot for still being too incompetent to support unicode in 20fucking24.) without putting in a bunch of greebles that would make an app logo (or favicon) really fugly. Is Adobe going to st

    • Indeed, Adobe's logo does look like a Delta with a bit removed. Maybe Delta could change their logo to look like an A, that way it wouldn't look like Adobe's Delta-shaped logo?

    • It looks more like Adobe's logo and the letter A than it does the Delta symbol. If they were trying to convey the Delta symbol then they failed and now have a chance to get it right by making it Delta not A.

  • Not that I like Adobe, but they are right here.

  • Would it have killed anyone... (Score:3)

    by Briareos ( 21163 ) on Saturday May 18, 2024 @07:54AM (#64481097)

    ...to mention that "Delta Emulator" is a Nintendo systems emulator for iOS?

  • Attack of the Logo Nazis, now playing in theatres everywhere.

    Plot summary: big corporation bullies attack small company in order to protect $. A rebel emerges and bombs a ventilator shaft on the giant Photo Battleshop, giving it chronic constipation. Eventually the PB's intestines explode and CEOs hit the fan.

  • Adobe was actually very nice (Score:3)

    by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Saturday May 18, 2024 @10:12AM (#64481253)

    This is an issue of trademark, which means that there's an active obligation for Adobe to defend the mark if they want to be able to use it against others in court later.

    That said, Adobe was really nice about this. They didn't try to beat up the little guy. They didn't threaten legal action. They didn't allege infringement. They didn't issue a cease & desist. They didn't demand a response by a deadline. They simply suggested that it might be wise to change the logo so as not "to confuse consumers or otherwise violate Adobe’s rights or the law", which is just about the mildest letter I've ever seen from a lawyer asking someone to stop what they're doing.

    And when you get down to it, the logos really are very similar. Basically just a color shift. Everyone seems aware it was an accident and just wants to move away from the situation.

    • I agree with the merit of Adobe's case but let's not pretend they're a teddy bear.

      "Testut got another email from Apple that suggested his app might be at risk because Adobe had reached out to allege Delta was infringing its intellectual property rights."

      They literally alleged infringement and took action against them. If a mobster tells you to have a nice day and he hopes you don't fall down any stairs that wasn't being nice. Later that day when the mobster's friend is behind you on a flight of stair

  • They should have bone with Papyrus! (Score:3)

    by Ecuador ( 740021 ) on Saturday May 18, 2024 @10:31AM (#64481273) Homepage

    They should have gone with a Papyrus delta, very hard to confuse with Adobe!

  • Lowercase delta is more stylish (Score:3)

    by williamyf ( 227051 ) on Saturday May 18, 2024 @11:04AM (#64481297)

    'Nuff said

  • Like the guys who generated and published every possible melody, somebody should make an algorithm to make every possible variant of simplified letters in every free typeface and publish them.

    With SVG the space required is actually petty small.

    Just end all the nonsense.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dwedit ( 232252 )

      Doesn't matter, courts say humans must have created it and not algorithms for it to count.

      • So then bring in the monkeys. Shouldn't cost too much to pay a bunch of them to create a bunch of type faces. Even better get those illusive ones called "interns" I hear they work for free.....

      • That would exclude every single modern pop song, I hear Taylor Swift published a new property for the public domain.

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