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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

RED is a trademark...

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I believe that privately companies like Google and Adobe love for their product names to become household terms. You google something to find information, you photoshop a photo to make it look good. The problem is that, legally they need to protect these words as trademarks, lest they become so commonplace that they refer to a generic concept rather than their product. If you need an aspirin, do you really care if it was made by Bayer? Kleenexes, Xerox's, etc.

I don't think anyone has 'verbed' the word Red yet, but trademark owners need to be seen as actively protecting their trademarks or they could lose them.

That's enough from me for tonight, I am off to red some footage, then redcine it off to post. :-)

Red ya later,

Crewpix.

Nice.

Red and out.
 
This is an odd one. For one I don't understand the need to name your business after someone elses. Name it after what defines you.
On the other hand is a company trademarking a COLOR. I find it odd to trademark something that is in the public domain as much as a color. Especially one as loaded as red. Communists. A NGO funded through the sale of red colored electronics. A girl with a riding hood. So if I had a company with the name red in it working in the image aquisition business (which i dont and
am not planning to) and your lawyers would try to come after me I would tell them to stick it because they have no leg to stand on. Red in my name could be interpretated as so many other things than an association with your company... But then you'd have deeper pockets and could just squash me by holding me and my assets up on the court system. No one would want that.
 
This is an odd one. For one I don't understand the need to name your business after someone elses. Name it after what defines you.
On the other hand is a company trademarking a COLOR. I find it odd to trademark something that is in the public domain as much as a color. Especially one as loaded as red. Communists. A NGO funded through the sale of red colored electronics. A girl with a riding hood. So if I had a company with the name red in it working in the image aquisition business (which i dont and
am not planning to) and your lawyers would try to come after me I would tell them to stick it because they have no leg to stand on. Red in my name could be interpretated as so many other things than an association with your company... But then you'd have deeper pockets and could just squash me by holding me and my assets up on the court system. No one would want that.


You are welcome to ask your attourney for guidance if you believe there is no merit to our requests.

I know this is hard for some of you guys to appreciate.. but this is really important to us. If RED DIGITAL CINEMA did not exist.. I am sure most of you wouldn't call your companies RED xxx. That association and implication is key to understanding all of this.
 
you've known about these for about a year and just now speak up.

They've spoken up about it before, but you were probably outside shooting instead of reading the forums. Personally, I recommend basement dwelling gnomes for all your forum-reading needs. Getting them to write posts for me was hard at first (my first beta attempt was the "REDHKSC" user; that clearly failed), but now it's smooth sailing.
 
and Apple trademarked a fruit... :-)

Jim

And the Beetles a bug.


Both nouns. Red is an adjective, describing the quality of a noun... Any other trademarked companies named after adjectives?


Sorry to steer this off topic, I like playing the devil's advocate a little too much...
:w00t:
 
So if I had a company with the name red in it working in the image aquisition business (which i dont and
am not planning to) and your lawyers would try to come after me I would tell them to stick it because they have no leg to stand on. Red in my name could be interpretated as so many other things than an association with your company...

I guess it would depend on why it was called red-something, and when. RED in this field is clearly (both through trademark protection of specific products and general usage) related to the activities of RED.com. Unless you had been called red-whatever before, had no direct involvement with RED products or competing products then I think you'd find that any good lawyer would tell you to either negotiate or bow to the request.

RED doesn't have a trademark on just RED. All their trademarks are RED-something pretty much. However if you had a business called RED-somethingelse in a similar field then they'd have a very good argument that your mark was confusingly similar in the eyes of consumers to their own (earlier) registered marks.

But then you'd have deeper pockets and could just squash me by holding me and my assets up on the court system. No one would want that.

A lot of intellectual property law comes down to that really. A trademark or patent is only as enforceable as your ability to enforce it.
 
shows how big a fanboys we are....

imagine naming your company F23films (actually has a ring to it)
or SonyShooters.com
 
so it will have to be a 'greentruck' this sucks, if we want to build out a truck
for onset red support, designed around a red workflow I am screwed with letting everyone know what its for. The name would say it all - 'RedTruck'


Glad I am not doing this project but a friend is. I will tell him to change the name or he could get ass kicked!
 
Jim,
Since our conversation in Vegas at NAB, We changed the name of our company like you requested. You didn't even need to make a case for it. I should have known better, we were just moving too fast getting everything set-up. It wasn't a big deal. Thank you for being so nice about it and offering to work with us on a new name. We just concluded our due diligence on the new name this week.

You really should change your screen name to "Visine for Trademarks" because you take the Red out:)!
 
Both nouns. Red is an adjective, describing the quality of a noun... Any other trademarked companies named after adjectives?


Sorry to steer this off topic, I like playing the devil's advocate a little too much...
:w00t:

Well, if you want to get into semantics, then actually...

In the phrase "Apple Computers," which was the original name of the company - Apple is an adjective. What type of computers are they? They are Apple Computers.

The "RED ONE" is a noun. RED the company is a noun.

As in:

"I'm going to RED today."
"My RED ONE gets me chicks."
"Deanan works for RED."

Taken out of context, yes, "red" is an adjective. But in this particular case in our industry, Apple started as an adjective, and RED started as a noun.

Lucas
------
VP of Gerunds and Non-Finite Verbs
assimilate, inc.
LA, CA, USA
 
We love the fact that our customers are willing to embrace the RED program and actually want to use the name. We are flattered. Problem is if the mark gets diluted, it becomes fair game for even our competitors. Quite a dilemma.

As Shawn pointed out... there will be no ass kicking of our customers. Only a request to help out the brand. If the request is denied... well. :-)

Jim

Sounds only fair :)
 
So, I guess I should remove my back-order for www.RED.com....seems like you guys are serious about this camera thing. :)
 
You really should change your screen name to "Visine for Trademarks" because you take the Red out:)!

Already taken, Blair trademarked Visine Ninja when we changed our name.:ph34r: Strangely Visene had no issue with it. As long as we didn't make Redeye Drops :waaa:
 
so it will have to be a 'greentruck' this sucks, if we want to build out a truck
for onset red support, designed around a red workflow I am screwed with letting everyone know what its for. The name would say it all - 'RedTruck'


Glad I am not doing this project but a friend is. I will tell him to change the name or he could get ass kicked!

He can always call it the "bloody truck" :innocent:
 
If WE don't want Sony or LG or Panasonic to be able to use "RED" then WE have to protect it by not using it. If we all believe in the camera program and want the word RED to actually stand for something, like a new way of making movies, then we protect the thing that is important to us. I want people to know what the hell I'm talking about when I say "Red Camera". I don't want LG or Sony or Kodak to use it, dilute it, and have access to one more way of trying to derail this camera's progress.
 
Hey, you could always just translate the word "red" into another language, like Japanese or something...
 
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