There's another big problem with Elon Musk's Twitter rebrand: Microsoft owns the trademark to the title "X." In a word: lol.
  • @[email protected]
    2•2 years ago

    Pretty sure X has existed since Ancient Greece at least. Maybe even the Phoenicians before the Greek alphabet?

  • @[email protected]
    168•2 years ago

    As amusing as it is to see Elon fail, letters like “X” shoud not be trademarkable. Just one indicator that we’re truly reaching capitalist extremism levels of insanity.

    • @[email protected]
      19•2 years ago

      Trademarks only cover very significant uses. Microsoft can (and apparently did) trademark X in connection to the Xbox, so competitors can’t make a game console called an XStation or PlayStation X, but people not making video game consoles aren’t affected.

      [Edit: Man, Lemmy is weird. I deleted this comment right after posting it because I thought it was redundant. I only undeleted it because I saw it was the top-rated comment in its sub-thread.]

      • @[email protected]
        2•2 years ago

        You can also protect colors. Like there is a defined “target red” and “home depot orange” (probably a twitter blue that I guess will be up for grabs soon). You could use that orange to open, say, a day-care, hair salon, or auto-shop, but not a hardware store. Basically if you can show it would cause consumer confusion you can protect it.

    • @[email protected]
      -1•2 years ago

      Trademarks are a government-enforced (i.e. publicly-mandated) monopoly, which is fundamentally antithetical to capitalism.

      Capitalism: “an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit.”

      For sure, there are many shades of grey to be had here, and the world has 0 purely capitalist societies (in fact, such a society is inherently impossible). But every time the public controls trade and industry, e.g. when enforcing trademark law, that isn’t capitalism.

      • @[email protected]
        5•2 years ago

        Private property laws are a government-enforced (i.e. publicly-mandated) style of ownership.

        Fure sure, there are many shades of grey to be had here, but Elon Musk owning Twitter is the ultimate form of communism.

    • sab
      48•2 years ago

      Also, how the hell could Microsoft get a patent for X in 2003 when X has been around since 1984, and is pretty much a direct competitor? This makes no sense at all.

        • sab
          24•2 years ago

          Makes sense I guess. Somehow also makes the trademark even more absurd.

          Reminds me a little of Apple v. Apple Records, and how Apple promised never too use their brand to enter into the music industry (like they later did with iTunes anyway).

          • @[email protected]
            34•2 years ago

            In 1991, Apple Computer made an agreement to pay Apple Records $26 million in exchange for letting Apple Computer use the “Apple” trademark for music. But that was long before iTunes, they wanted the Apple trademark for their computer chimes. Apple Records agreed to let Apple Computer use the Apple trademark for music as long as it did not “package, sell or distribute physical music materials.”

            Much later, iTunes was developed and Apple Records sued Apple Computer. Eventually a judge sided with Apple Computer, pointing out that iTunes did not package, sell or distribute physical music materials. Thus, Apple Records couldn’t get another bite of that Apple…

      • fiat_lux
        27•2 years ago

        The law is a weapon of the rich. You don’t have to be right, you just have to be able to afford out-lawyering your competition. Patents are especially revolting.

        • sab
          4•2 years ago

          Of course, my question was rhetorical. I guess it didn’t come out so clearly considering it’s also, at least in theory, a damned good question.

          • fiat_lux
            4•2 years ago

            It was probably clear enough, you just caught me half-asleep and unmedicated. I really dislike patents.

      • @[email protected]
        17•2 years ago

        How is Xorg a “direct competitor” to Microsoft? Especially Microsoft’s trademark to X in the gaming market where they own the Xbox and Xorg doesn’t participate at all?

        Trademarks protect consumers by preventing fraud and misleading naming. It makes perfect sense that Microsoft owns X in the given market space due to the enormous prevalence of Xbox. Their first console was literally X-shaped and it would be bad for consumers for anyone to be able to make the “X-station” or “X-cube” or some such.

        • sab
          3•2 years ago

          One could not imagine Linux without X11 in 2003. And in 2003, the situation between Microsoft and Linux was rather tense.

          That said, I managed to somehow forget about Xbox. I agree it makes sense that Sony couldn’t launch an “X console” with a gigantic X on the side.

          So yes, I want thinking it through. I do however think that using this trademark against X.xom would be ill conceived, no matter how much I hate Musk. If they start moving into gaming it might be different though, so fair enough.

          Thanks for making me think it through more! :)

  • @[email protected]
    2•2 years ago

    I meannnn I don’t “hate” Musk, but boy…. Is he an idiot who deserves all the shit that he gets. My 7yr old is probably smarter than him atm.

  • PatFusty
    26•2 years ago

    How does both meta and microsoft own the rights to “X”

    • @[email protected]B
      23•2 years ago

      From what I understand, MS owns it in regards gaming, and Meta owns it in regards to social media.

    • monsterpiece42
      6•2 years ago

      Probably in different industries. I saw the MS patent is for game related stuff. I would assume metas is for social media stuff, or some other field they’re involved in.

      • @[email protected]
        12•2 years ago

        Trademark, not patent. I wouldn’t normally correct you but there seems to be a whole lot of misunderstanding in this thread about the categories of intellectual property.

  • @[email protected]
    2•2 years ago

    I thought you couldn’t take a trademark that already exists. At least in my country when I applied my trademark I had to use a portal to check it didn’t exist and the service writes that they check too. Not sure about that but at least it’s supposed to be checked and blocked if already taken.

  • @[email protected]
    -13•2 years ago

    For as much as the reddit/Lemmy communities claim to hate Elon they talk about him constantly.

    Elon 2028

    • @[email protected]
      4•2 years ago

      You do realize he was born in South Africa so is therefore ineligible to hold the office of President right?

    • @[email protected]
      4•2 years ago

      News sites talk about news. That includes things that people don’t like.

      It’s kind of like saying:

      -Those guys on reddit sure do talk about Walmart taking advantage of their workers even though they hate capitalism

      -Climate activists talk about climate change a lot, I thought they hated it?

      -Why does fox news spend so much time hating on democrats? Don’t they know that they aren’t supposed to talk about stuff they disagree with?

      Elon doesn’t have to be liked to be relevant.

      • Flying Squid
        2•2 years ago

        We used to get this bullshit all the time on r/atheism on Reddit. “You guys sure talk about religion/God a lot for atheists.” What the fuck else are a bunch of atheists getting together going to talk about, baseball?

  • @[email protected]
    104•2 years ago

    Aside from Microsoft and apparently Facebook, there’s also X the classic Unix display protocol, aka X11.