KPop Demon Hunters was a resounding success for Netflix, coming out of nowhere to become the platformās most-watched movie of all time and spawning several of last yearās biggest pop hits. It was less of a success for Demon Hunter, the Christian metal band that presumably has been getting mogged in the search bar everā¦
The thing is a trademark canāt trademark something āgenericā.
Like you canāt trademark āchocolate dreamsā ans a name for a bandā¦ and the go after some one that uses the phrase āchocolate dreamsā for an unrelated movie.
Because no one is likely to confuse the band for the movie.
Generic is not what you think. Youāre trying to make the case that all words in the dictionary are generic. Iām sorry youāre just wrong about this.
And second, that wasnāt what I was arguing. Nice straw man.
Third, you canāt trademark something after people who have similar names just because they have similar names.
Demon hunter is a metal band.
Itās very unlikely that they lost business because someone wandered into an anime called āKpop Demon Hunterāā¦ and even if they did, it wasnāt named to trade on the metal bandās name.
Not only do you not know what makes a potential trade mark generic, but you donāt know what a straw man is either ā¦
Youāre sort of right about the names, but know of standing in this case has the given name āDemon Hunterā, itās a band name.
Trade mark is a registered IP right, it doesnāt matter if you intended to infringe it, you canāt trade using someone elseās registered name (in the same field of commerce, and same geographic area).
A straw man fallacy is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction.[1] One who engages in this fallacy is said to be āattacking a straw manā.
My statement:
The thing is a trademark canāt trademark something āgenericā.
Like you canāt trademark āchocolate dreamsā ans a name for a bandā¦ and the go after some one that uses the phrase āchocolate dreamsā for an unrelated movie.
Because no one is likely to confuse the band for the movie.
to which they replied:
Generic is not what you think. Youāre trying to make the case that all words in the dictionary are generic. Iām sorry youāre just wrong about this.
Which absolutely is not what I was trying to say. So yes. They misrepresented my argument. Are you trying to say they didnāt attack it?
Furtherā¦ My response to them, which you replied to with out apparently reading.
First off thereās a reason I put it in quotes.
and that reason was because I knew pedantic idiots like you would conflate the word āgenericā with with the legal term āgeneric trademark.ā The argument that Iām making is that ādemon hunterā is common enough that itās not particularly specific; and that further, no one is likely to be confused between the two.
And the USPTO agreed- more or less- when they gave netflix a trademark for āKPop Demon Hunterā- because checking for potential conflicts is part of the process.
by āgenericā I meant that you canāt trademark something thats generic- Like I canāt open a shop at the State Fair and trademark āturkey legsā because Iām selling shoes that look like turkey feet and then go after the people selling roasted turkey legs.
Does that make sense? they probably would reject that trademark, actually. Or require it be more specific.
Just so you know, they didnāt provide a straw man argument (which is necessarily a weakened position[hence straw]), they provided a statement of fact. Source: degree study in logic and philosophy.
You could respond that you found the fact irrelevant, but it seemed apposite and insightful to me.
I knew pedantic idiots like you would conflate the word āgenericā with with the legal term āgeneric trademark.ā
You mean people who know trade mark law would challenge your incorrect use of generic. Thereās no such thing as a āgeneric trademarkā, fwiw, though I realise youāre unwilling to learn.
I canāt open a shop at the State Fair and trademark āturkey legsā because Iām selling shoes that look like turkey feet
Yh, youāve still got it wrong. You 100% can do this, because a trade mark applies in a trading category (except for āfamousā marks). So Apple Music can have a trade mark of āAppleā for selling goods in the music category (famously infringed by Apple Computers), etc., but cannot have a trade mark for selling things with the mark Apple that covers fruit sales, say; because āAppleā is not distinctive in that field of industry. Actually applications are in something called a Nice class (though AIUI there is a specific classification USPTO use that is narrower than the international Nice class).
Thereās a close example to your āturkey legā - for 6 years āham hockā (ie pig leg) was a registered trade mark, https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/search/search-results/77579235. Why was it allowed? Well because it was for a board game, class 028, and so didnāt stop people from selling actual ham hocks.
Iām not 100% on trade marks in USA, but āconfusionā in trade mark law usually has a specific test before the law that is not the same as merely requiring that consumers be confused. Like genericisation, confusion does not have its common meaning when discussing trade marks.
Did you read the article? They are now doing a live tour of KPop Demon Hunter" and they have at least one example of there being confusion in the market. AEG and Netflix could have promoted the tour as HUNTR/X: KPop Demon Hunters or something to avoid this. I suspect there will be a settlement as just because there was no confusion when it was just a movie doesnāt mean they can go into live concerts with the same name.
No. I didnāt because I have better things to do.
But no, they still havenāt shown trademark infringement. Youāre really going to tell me that the metal band lost measurable business because some idiot on the internment couldnāt tell the difference between a kpop musical on Netflix and their metal band.
all because they were either to cheap to pay for SEO or so crappy that paying for SEO still doesnāt matter. (Bet: the settlement includes SEO.)
Sorry. No. Thatās not trademark infringement. Itād be like McDonaldās Plumbing suing McDonaldās burgers.
Guess what- these things happen, and theyād have to show that that the decision was intentional and malicious, when the people making the decision probably didnāt even know the metal band existed. Thatās not going to happen.
Again, please read the article. The more apt comparison would be if McDonaldās Plumbing started selling and marketing burgers. This is a pretty straightforward case and will likely be settled for a sum that can be found in Netflixās/AEGās couch cushions. Also, āmaliciousnessā is not a factor in determining trademark infringement.
Again. Please try and understand what Iām saying.
The differences in other branding are sufficient that no one looking at the webpages or whatever they clicked on would be confused. Thereās not a likely chance that someone is going to confuse Demon Hunter the Metal Band with KPop Demon Hunter the Anime. And even if they did click the wrong link thereās no real harm. All it really means is that whoever took the wrong link hop needs to work on their google-foo.
I mean. really. look at the difference in branding:
Vs:
The concept of āDemon Hunterā as a thing is something thatās common enough that itās going to bump into other brands. Itās not like they went after the 2005 movie āDemon Hunterā
and while things may have fallen through the cracks, but when you apply for a trademark the USPTO searches their database to verify that thereās nothing already trademarked that you might be infringing on. given that netflix has a trademark, that search happened in some form and they decided it was acceptable.
The thing is a trademark canāt trademark something āgenericā.
Like you canāt trademark āchocolate dreamsā ans a name for a bandā¦ and the go after some one that uses the phrase āchocolate dreamsā for an unrelated movie.
Because no one is likely to confuse the band for the movie.
Generic is not what you think. Youāre trying to make the case that all words in the dictionary are generic. Iām sorry youāre just wrong about this.
First off thereās a reason I put it in quotes.
And second, that wasnāt what I was arguing. Nice straw man.
Third, you canāt trademark something after people who have similar names just because they have similar names.
Demon hunter is a metal band.
Itās very unlikely that they lost business because someone wandered into an anime called āKpop Demon Hunterāā¦ and even if they did, it wasnāt named to trade on the metal bandās name.
Not only do you not know what makes a potential trade mark generic, but you donāt know what a straw man is either ā¦
Youāre sort of right about the names, but know of standing in this case has the given name āDemon Hunterā, itās a band name.
Trade mark is a registered IP right, it doesnāt matter if you intended to infringe it, you canāt trade using someone elseās registered name (in the same field of commerce, and same geographic area).
Itās interesting.
from wikipedia a straw man fallacy is :
My statement:
to which they replied:
Which absolutely is not what I was trying to say. So yes. They misrepresented my argument. Are you trying to say they didnāt attack it?
Furtherā¦ My response to them, which you replied to with out apparently reading.
and that reason was because I knew pedantic idiots like you would conflate the word āgenericā with with the legal term āgeneric trademark.ā The argument that Iām making is that ādemon hunterā is common enough that itās not particularly specific; and that further, no one is likely to be confused between the two.
And the USPTO agreed- more or less- when they gave netflix a trademark for āKPop Demon Hunterā- because checking for potential conflicts is part of the process.
by āgenericā I meant that you canāt trademark something thats generic- Like I canāt open a shop at the State Fair and trademark āturkey legsā because Iām selling shoes that look like turkey feet and then go after the people selling roasted turkey legs.
Does that make sense? they probably would reject that trademark, actually. Or require it be more specific.
Just so you know, they didnāt provide a straw man argument (which is necessarily a weakened position[hence straw]), they provided a statement of fact. Source: degree study in logic and philosophy.
You could respond that you found the fact irrelevant, but it seemed apposite and insightful to me.
You mean people who know trade mark law would challenge your incorrect use of generic. Thereās no such thing as a āgeneric trademarkā, fwiw, though I realise youāre unwilling to learn.
Yh, youāve still got it wrong. You 100% can do this, because a trade mark applies in a trading category (except for āfamousā marks). So Apple Music can have a trade mark of āAppleā for selling goods in the music category (famously infringed by Apple Computers), etc., but cannot have a trade mark for selling things with the mark Apple that covers fruit sales, say; because āAppleā is not distinctive in that field of industry. Actually applications are in something called a Nice class (though AIUI there is a specific classification USPTO use that is narrower than the international Nice class).
Thereās a close example to your āturkey legā - for 6 years āham hockā (ie pig leg) was a registered trade mark, https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/search/search-results/77579235. Why was it allowed? Well because it was for a board game, class 028, and so didnāt stop people from selling actual ham hocks.
Iām not 100% on trade marks in USA, but āconfusionā in trade mark law usually has a specific test before the law that is not the same as merely requiring that consumers be confused. Like genericisation, confusion does not have its common meaning when discussing trade marks.
Did you read the article? They are now doing a live tour of KPop Demon Hunter" and they have at least one example of there being confusion in the market. AEG and Netflix could have promoted the tour as HUNTR/X: KPop Demon Hunters or something to avoid this. I suspect there will be a settlement as just because there was no confusion when it was just a movie doesnāt mean they can go into live concerts with the same name.
No. I didnāt because I have better things to do.
But no, they still havenāt shown trademark infringement. Youāre really going to tell me that the metal band lost measurable business because some idiot on the internment couldnāt tell the difference between a kpop musical on Netflix and their metal band.
all because they were either to cheap to pay for SEO or so crappy that paying for SEO still doesnāt matter. (Bet: the settlement includes SEO.)
Sorry. No. Thatās not trademark infringement. Itād be like McDonaldās Plumbing suing McDonaldās burgers.
Guess what- these things happen, and theyād have to show that that the decision was intentional and malicious, when the people making the decision probably didnāt even know the metal band existed. Thatās not going to happen.
Again, please read the article. The more apt comparison would be if McDonaldās Plumbing started selling and marketing burgers. This is a pretty straightforward case and will likely be settled for a sum that can be found in Netflixās/AEGās couch cushions. Also, āmaliciousnessā is not a factor in determining trademark infringement.
No it wouldnāt.
Again. Please try and understand what Iām saying.
The differences in other branding are sufficient that no one looking at the webpages or whatever they clicked on would be confused. Thereās not a likely chance that someone is going to confuse Demon Hunter the Metal Band with KPop Demon Hunter the Anime. And even if they did click the wrong link thereās no real harm. All it really means is that whoever took the wrong link hop needs to work on their google-foo.
I mean. really. look at the difference in branding:
Vs:
The concept of āDemon Hunterā as a thing is something thatās common enough that itās going to bump into other brands. Itās not like they went after the 2005 movie āDemon Hunterā
and while things may have fallen through the cracks, but when you apply for a trademark the USPTO searches their database to verify that thereās nothing already trademarked that you might be infringing on. given that netflix has a trademark, that search happened in some form and they decided it was acceptable.