[specialdragon]

I wasn't aware of Fix My Street, thank you for that.

The reason for bringing it to HN's attention was because I too read about the service on the BBC News website and their plight with Instagram.

I was a little perplexed - it's a British company, operating entirely within the UK - why is Instagram getting involved? The 'gram' prefix has been around for quite a while [citation needed], is it an infringement of trademark? Then again, the company is posting pictures with captions, which is very Instagram-y, so I can see a certain level of cross over.

[Xylakant]

> The 'gram' prefix has been around for quite a while [citation needed]

I lately heard about that newfangled thing called tele-gram.

(Nitpick: it's a suffix, not a prefix ;)

[specialdragon]

The nitpick is entirely fair. What's worse, is that I know the word is suffix, I just didn't use it. :(

[throwaway049]

I can see why Instagram want to defend their brand identity but hope they in turn are sued by a collective of kissograms.

[icebraining]

The 'gram' prefix has been around for quite a while

So has "Apple", yet Apple was still sued by Apple and had to settle. A generic term may be trademarked as long as it doesn't describe the particular goods or services being sold.

[pbhjpbhj]

Apple Computers were rightly sued by Apple (the music company, Apple Records?) as the computer company was getting in to the area of music.

The suffix -gram is already well known from "telegram" and adopted in to other 'message sharing via different media' situations: cookiegram, kissogram, etc..

The Apple case is a million miles from Littergram vs. Instagram. If they'd tried to create "Binstagram" there would be a case to answer ...

I consider the chance of actual confusion (which FWIW isn't actually the measure normally used to judge infringement) to be practically zero.

[tamana]

But "gram" does describe service of sending pictures.

[icebraining]

Not really. "gram" just means "written record". Mammogram, echocardiogram, sonogram, monogram - none have anything to do with "sending" or "pictures".

[celticninja]

There is a messaging app called Telegram and they never went after that. This smacks of bullying.