[CameronBanga]

Note for OP. Quark seems like an SEO deathblow to a project. Seems best to rename and give the project a chance?

[cschmidt]

Also, Quark is a trademark of a software company, who's lawyers will eventually be in touch

http://www.quark.com/About_Quark/Legal/

[jdnier]

Yep, Quark has been used for page layout and typesetting since the 80s. They do web layout now also, so this js project seems to have some overlap potential.

[protomyth]

Yeah, Quark's lawyers are not shy and quite aggressive.

[WaltPurvis]

Can confirm. The name will have to be changed.

And to the app's creators: Don't change the name to InDesign.

[nishkalkashyap]

If their software product feels threatened by something that a developer came out of his basement. Perhaps it's time for them to rethink their entire strategy.

[capn_cabbage]

IANAL, but from what I can gather (at least with the USPTO in the USA), a trademark can be weakened and even lost when not properly monitored and/or enforced. It would be unwise for any business to fail to protect their trademark(s).

[cschmidt]

(note: IANAL)

I don't know what country you're in, but they're in the US, and their lawyers are legally obligated to defend their trademarks against all violations, or they risk losing the trademark. So they will. Trademark use is by category, so you might be able to start a business called Quark Cupcakes, but you're both doing software, so it is a clear violation.

It is really hard to find a good name, and obviously it is your choice to stick with Quark. However, I do expect you'll get a cease and desist letter unless you change the name.

[hallihax]

> Perhaps it's time for them to rethink their entire strategy.

Their strategy works. Yours is unproven.

Just an observation :P

[benjaminbrodie]

So was Kafka, but in the opposite direction. Results about Apache Kafka have seriously polluted the search results making it a lot harder to filter out pages not related to the novelist. Something is very wrong when the top result for "Kafka" is some software. Do you want to live in world where you kids google "Socrates" "Beethoven" and some software project shows up on top?

[cogburnd02]

> Something is very wrong when the top result for "Kafka" is some software.

Not necessarily. If the software is more discussed on the net than the man it's named for, then perhaps that would be best?

> Do you want to live in world where you kids google "Socrates" "Beethoven" and some software project shows up on top?

You can bet your ass that if we had internet the way we do today in the early 90's that if you searched for Beethoven the first result would have been the dog movie.

Interestingly, I had an edutainment console called Socrates when I was young and it's very hard to find information on.