[FloorEgg]

Trademarked the idea?

I don't think that word means what you think it means...

I'm not OP, and I'm no lawyer, but I'm sure you're free to try this concept for yourself.

Three ways to protect IP

Trademark is for logos and names Parents are for methods and inventions Copyright is for works of art and writing

They might be able to trademark the phrase "continue and persist", but it's not likely. If they had they would have put a little TM or (r) next to it.

It's not sufficiently original to qualify for copyright protection.

And it's so far from being patentable I hope I don't have to explain why.

[jagged-chisel]

In the US:

- a trademark may be claimed with TM even if not registered. A trademark registered with, and accepted by, USPTO should use circle R.

- these folks hold the copyright on their specific letter. Avoid infringement (and potential negative legal ramifications) by not reproducing their letter. This is not limited to photocopying a physical paper. Retyping verbatim will infringe.

- the concept itself cannot be protected with existing (US) intellectual property law.

[cyanmagenta]

To complete the legal analysis a bit more rigorously, mostly because I’m drunk and bored on Thanksgiving:

- The service name “continue and persist” is probably trademarkable by them if they wanted (assuming it’s not already in use). And as you point out, formal registration wouldn’t be necessary, although it does come with various benefits. Doing so could block someone from creating a similar service with the same or confusingly similar name.

- For copyright, reproduction doesn’t have to be verbatim to infringe. The standard is typically substantial similarity. So you couldn’t just change a few words here or there in the letter.

- Publicly disclosed concepts can be protected under US law, but you have to go through patent law. Haven’t done a prior art search, but seems unlikely that there’s much patentable here. There is also the section 101 (abstract idea) issue, but that is hard to evaluate without looking at the exact patent claims at issue.

[thayne]

> And it's so far from being patentable I hope I don't have to explain why.

I would say the same thing about a lot of things the USPTO has handed out patents for. At this point, it wouldn't surprise me if someone could obtain a patent for this, if the patent application was written the right way. Whether such a patent would hold up in court is an entirely different question.

[thepuppet33r]

So, I had a emoji in my original post that indicates a joke around the trademark comment, and I didn't realize HN automatically strips those out.

I appreciate the clarification in this and the comments below, but yeah, it was meant to be tongue in cheek.