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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 :)

Scarlet LG - Copyrights???

You can't own a word such as Scarlet that is listed in a dictionary for example. This is like the lawsuit Windows tried against a Company because their Linux based software name was Lindows... dismissed because the Judged said you just can't own the copyrights of such a word like Windows. Now, in the other hand, if you name your product Skarlette and copyright it...
 
™

™

...Jim owns it...

You can't copyright a word, but you can trademark it if it's associated with a specific product...


"RED Digital Cinema, RED ONE, MYSTERIUM, REDCODE, SCARLET, REDFLASH, RED-RAM, RED-RAID, RED-DRIVE, RED-CAGE, RED-RAIL, REDCINE, RED QUICK, RED Alert!, RED Quick and RED-GUN are trademarks of the RED Digital Cinema Camera Company."
http://www.red.com/nab/scarlet

:huh:
 
Actually, you can "own", i.e., trademark, dictionary words, but only within a reasonable scope of usage (i.e., if the "infringement" causes brand confusion). Another way to put it is that if RED were to release a line of consumer TVs named "scarlet", they would almost certainly run into trouble. Most of the rules about trademarks all have to do with brand confusion, and if there's no danger of brand confusion, you don't really have a case. If your name is non-generic (e.g., "accenture"), you have a greater chance of brand confusion outside of the narrow domain of your brand (e.g., if RED were to create a camera called "Accenture Cam", there's a greater danger that people will think it has something to do with the company "Accenture" simply because it's not a generic term).

As far as I know, Microsoft's claim about Lindows was dismissed not because Microsoft can't trademark "Windows" due to its being in the dictionary, but because the term "windows" was used to describe what MS'es trademark was describing some time before MS started using it, and that Lindows has a right to reference that sense of "windows" without being punished for infringement. It would be like RED trying to trademark "camcorder" for the Scarlet. Incidentally, MS now owns the trademark to "Lindows", for which they paid $20m.

That said, I doubt that RED Scarlet is close enough to the LG Scarlet to cause RED or LG to have to change the name, but given how central the brand is to LG's marketing push on the product, I wouldn't be too surprised if LG decides to try and "protect" it by going after RED. Big companies have definitely done crazier things in the name of protecting intellectual property.

Also, it's probably worth pointing out that none of this has anything to copyrights at all, which is a completely separate area of intellectual property.

IANAL and all that.
 
From what I understand, common words cannot be protected under federal guidelines. Scarlet is too common. Red cannot corner the entire color red spectrum and associated shades... it just wouldn't hold in court. Here is some text I found:

"(e) Generic - Weak and Unprotectable. Generic terms or common words for the products or services cannot function as a trademark because it would prevent others from rightfully using the common name for the product or service that they make. Super Glue, after a costly court battle, was deemed generic when used on a strong, rapid setting glue and not entitled to trademark protection."

***
 
www.uspto.gov

www.uspto.gov

A quick search of "Red.Com" at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (www.uspto.gov) revealed six "Scarlet" trademarks, including this one...

"SCARLET

IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: Digital cinema camera systems and accessories, sold individually or as a unit, comprised of, cameras, camera lenses, flash memory cards, electronic memories, hard drives for video recorders, video monitors and flat panel display screens, all for use in the creation, storage, delivery, manipulation, recording, playback or viewing of video, music, graphics, photos, audio, text, and multimedia data; cinematographic projectors; photographic projectors; slide projectors; computer programs for digital cinema cameras; audio and visual educational and teaching apparatus and instruments, namely, computer hardware and computer software programs for the integration of text, audio, graphics, still image and moving pictures into an interactive delivery for multimedia applications, computer white boards, video projectors and video display monitors, in International class 9

IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: Leasing or rental of cinema equipment and systems for use in the creation, storage, delivery, manipulation, recording, playback or viewing of video, music, graphics and audio and video broadcasting in a specified image format, in International Class 41

IC 042. US 100 101. G & S: Development of new technology for others in the field of image format technology involving or relating to the dissemination, broadcast or transmission of video, music, graphics, photos, audio, text, multimedia, computer programs and data in a specified image format, and consultation related thereto, in International Class 42"

Filing Date: February 6, 2008

Owner: Red.com, Inc. CORPORATION WASHINGTON P.O. Box 1389 Eastsound WASHINGTON 98245

http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=cuq9i1.8.61
 
thongs?

thongs?

and this one

:w00t:

JANNARD
"IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: Protective eyewear, namely, spectacles, prescription eyewear, anti glare glasses and sunglasses and their parts and accessories, namely, replacement lenses, frames, earstems, and nose pieces; cases specially adapted for spectacles and sunglasses and parts thereof

IC 014. US 002 027 028 050. G & S: Jewelry and time pieces, namely, clocks, watches and component parts thereof

IC 025. US 022 039. G & S: Clothing, namely, t-shirts, beach-wear, blouses, sports shirts, jerseys, swimwear, swimtrunks, shorts, underwear, shirts, pants, racing pants, ski and snowboard pants and jackets, jeans, vests, jackets, wetsuits, sweaters, pullovers, coats, sweatpants, headwear, namely, hats, caps, visors and footwear, namely, wetsuit booties, shoes, sandals, athletic footwear, all purpose sports footwear, thongs and boots"
 
TheThe said:
From what I understand, common words cannot be protected under federal guidelines. Scarlet is too common. Red cannot corner the entire color red spectrum and associated shades... it just wouldn't hold in court. Here is some text I found:

"(e) Generic - Weak and Unprotectable. Generic terms or common words for the products or services cannot function as a trademark because it would prevent others from rightfully using the common name for the product or service that they make. Super Glue, after a costly court battle, was deemed generic when used on a strong, rapid setting glue and not entitled to trademark protection."

***
Click to expand...

Actually, that sort of reinforces my point. It's only when the term is generic or common for the product you are creating that it's invalid. Since "scarlet" is in no way a common term for cameras or televisions, both should be trademarkable (and have been trademarked). The question is whether the two products are somehow similar enough (gadgets, video-related) that there would be a trademark dispute based on the idea that people could be confused about whether the products are connected and that LG is somehow behind the RED Scarlet or vice versa. If you or I were to put out a camcorder and brand it "Scarlet", you could be quite certain that you would be infringing on Jannard's trademark.

Super Glue and Windows fail as trademarks not because they can be found in the dictionary, but because they are generic terms for the very things they are trademarking (and were before the trademarks were filed). This is why companies like Adobe fight against the generic use of their products as terms (e.g., I "photoshopped" the light saber in), even though it might seem like it would be brilliant marketing--the simple act of genericization erodes the trademark and weakens its ability to stand up in court, and if it became generic enough that people knew the idea of photoshopping something more than they did the product itself, you could start selling a book called "How to photoshop light sabers with Gimp" (or even more extreme, a product called something like "Rephotoshopper"), and Adobe wouldn't be able to stop it.
 
What you guys are saying is how it ideally should be, and indeed might be on the books of various jurisdictions around the world. But it is sad that the practice has been less.

The situation in the world is that common enough words have been trademarked, where ever the legislation allows it or not. You can be taken to court for using the trademark in other industries, or common names, where ever the legislation allows it or not. It is not really based on morality, but power and expanding your it to cover as much as you can (good long movie in this guys). Rather than filter out all bad names cheaply in the beginning, according to legal requirements, the IP system has been moving towards filtering them out very expensively through challenges and court processes that directly favour well funded players, which is against the notion of free trade. I think there has been a bit of a turn around lately, but am unsure. All of what I say here in these posts, should be taken as merely conjecture, and not be relied upon in any way, an appropriate legal opinion, likely (conjecture) from an appropriate legal professional should be sort for that.

One tactic is to legally harass and bluff the other party, forcing them to choose between caving in or paying huge legal bills. If they pursue the matter against your trademark then put them through an expensive legal process where your bills add up to millions and you can claim damages against them. Then find a judge that can agree with you so they have a claim of millions against them before you even get to go to another appeal round (in Australia it is a bit more fair and straight forward than this I understand).

It is rotten to the core, and worse than even patent law (copyright law is still catching up in rottenness). Lawyers need to be made criminally and civilly legally liable for any practice that perverts fair justice, such as bluffing and challenging against the law, the other things mentioned here, and seeking or pursuing any outcome that is against the law or fair justice. They need to be legally and civilly required to pursue fair justice for all, not just for their clients, at a cheap price if just and fair to do so, and all this actively pursued and prosecuted. Only then can we hope to get justice back into the systems, reduce the amount of lawyers, and the cost of the legal systems. The legal systems are about bringing fair order, and peace, to the community, instead of scamming. I don't expect this to be challenged by anybody who is not on the other side of the line biased and protecting their own interests.

About common names, one case is "Apple" (Beatles fame) Vs Apple (computer fame) it was settled (probably out of court) that, from my limited understanding of the trials in the 70s/early 80's, if they didn't do anything musical they were not going to get sued (forget if there was any settlement). (I must state, about this, and any other case I mention here, I don't know what practices they used, and it should not be at all implied that any of the practices I mention in this post was or is used by them.) However, I believe that, ideally, trademark law should changed to not apply to cases like this, that a common "business names registry" could work to ensure exact same common names are not reused for different businesses in the same industry, that they also use distinguishing names in between industries. That would reduce maybe 90%+ of the costs of disputes over business names.

However, Scarlet being the only camera using that word on it's own does not phase me so much. If Sony was to release a "Scarlet colored cinema Camera" I would not really be against that either (though I think this use of generic descriptive terms may have been challenged in times past). However, "windows", which is a functional descriptive common name of common computer function and type (let alone in the wider world) is another thing. I didn't keep track of the Lindows trademark thing (which is like another trivial 'sounds remotely similar' case to me) I thought it went against them somewhere in the world, and they changed the name. It is hardly possible to mistake Lindows for framed windows, I think that similarities should be more obvious than that for generic words, and generic words be freely used for descriptive purposes in names and descriptions.

----

Just read about the scarlet displays anyway, noticed the big red button in this picture, and wonder if there is a actual tied in with Red Scarlet cameras. I really need a 4K display now, preferably big.

LG_1.jpg

http://us.lge.com/SCARLET/?CMP=PAC-scarlet
 
Trademarks are registered within a certain scope or area of business.

This is interesting though, because the areas in which RED holds a Trademark for the word "Scarlet" would also include televisions.

LG also holds a registered Tradmark on 'Scarlet', their category is:
IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: Plasma display panel TV, liquid crystal display TV

RED's was filed about a week after LG's.
 
I'd be more curious about the late night infomercials for an exercise rig called RED with a very familiar logo.
 
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