Meta given 30 days to cease using the name Threads by company that trademarked it 11 years ago

Didn't they do the same thing to Meta? Aren't they being sued now?

you're right in almost everything

Seems clear cut and Meta will likely have to change the name.

Meta has a massive amount of resources, I'm sure they can afford more lawyers than the British company. Courts tend to favor the one with most resources, so the smaller company will have a very hard time trying to make Meta to change their app's name.

It should be easy to rename as no one is using it.

But seriously, this is the kind of bullshit those monopolistic companies are doing all the time. Another infuriating one was with Google's Go language. Author contacted them that he was using the name for 10 years and even had a book written about the language, but they basically just went with it anyway, because he was nobody and they were Google. Also, this is speculating, but I won't believe when they came up with the name they didn't use their Google to look the name up, probably that's why they closed the issue so quickly.

What's the chrome cast one?

They should call it Y.

Threads is a cloud-based intelligent message hub that captures, transcribes, and organizes all of a company's digital messages, emails, and phone calls into one easily searchable database.

B2B is a completely different marketplace than B2C, and “internal search index of company’s digital messages” is a different industry than “social media app.”

The company’s own trademark registration indicates the trademark applies to “computer software, software and apparatus for the extraction of business information and knowledge.” That doesn’t sound like a social media app to me, either.

If it's all in writing you can't just force another company to do what you want. What you can do is wriggle, twist and delay until it becomes too expensive for the smaller company to continue to pursue.

However judges are more than well aware of this technique and will allow the plaintiff to accrue costs against Legal Aid (paid for by government).

So what usually happens:

1. Small co files against large co for using same name
2. Large co produces huge response document which is all piss and wind
3. Small co says they can't afford the costs to answer each point
4. Judge permits Small Co to use Legal Aid.
5. Large co offers to settle. (E.g. you're a 3 person sandwich shop. They offer you £10m. No more work, no more hassle)

If Small Co is energetic, young and courageous, they may choose to fight to the death. But Legal Aid has a limit...

Did you even read the article??

It appears that Meta was aware of Threads before launching its platform of the same name. Company lawyers made four offers to purchase the domain 'threads.app' from Threads Software Ltd from April 2023, all of which were declined. Meta announced Threads in July 2023, the same time that the British company says it was removed from Facebook.

They literally made an offer to buy the domain Threads.app 4 times and got rejected.

You think they were unaware?

So did everyone else lol

You don't trademark the word "threads", you trademark it within the context of the industry you're in

I can make a shop that sells pies and call it "Apple"

Someone was able to trademark the word "Apple", so that's not so surprising

Are you sure UK court allows it ? Because they filed in UK.

Depressing that people treat money winning over justice as a given. There is realism, and then there's defeatism.

Your link doesn't work for me. Is this the same?

https://nakamotoinstitute.org/static/docs/against-intellectual-monopoly.pdf

Not an expert on trademark law, but I think "Threads by Meta" would not work as the main part of that name would still be "Threads", "Meta Threads" could work, but if they'd make the "Meta" part not prominent in the branding then again it would probably be considered as only "Threads".

That would be the sensible approach, but some executive is propably throwing tantrum because of their injured pride. I will be surprised if they just comply.

Poor lads probably got insane amounts of traffic

I mean ... could they just use Twitter since that's not in use any more?

Even the name Meta was trademarked by others and they paid a lot for the rights to use it

quick reptile tongue slurp

Yeah. The group making billions in profit every quarter is sure getting their ass kicked. Facebook is dying too, right?

Yes you can, that is the definition of what a trademark is.

Could you imagine 20 different brands of Coke on the shelf?

The usage is specific to a market, however. For example, Delta Airlines and Delta Faucets. Both trademark "Delta."

According to Trademark law in many places you can.

Generally, you can only enforce your trademark (successfully) if the infringing group is in the same industry. So if I sold an educational service or toilet bowl cleaner called Apple the tech and music giant can't go after me for trademark infringement, though for music, computer tech and software they would have a case.

I agree, but tell that to Rockstar.

EDIT: I assume the downvoters aren’t familiar with Rockstar suing every indie game dev who released a game with “Monster” or “Monsters” in the title.

Wholly incorrect. I work in trademark law and yeah you have no idea what you're talking about.

I'm so confident in your legal analysis, which is clearly well thought out and legally sound, that I've launched my new social network "PepSi".

Gotta say, I'm feeling good about this one. No way it goes tits up.