[jerieljan]

> Masaki had the idea to register a three-diamond trademark, along with the "Mitsubishi" name, which means 'three diamonds.' (It may surprise you to learn that this was ten years before the much better-known Mitsubishi Group of heavy industry companies registered its name and identical mark. Mitsubishi Pencil has no connection to the numerous other Mitsubishi companies in Japan; it is and has always been a manufacturer of writing and drawing supplies.)

Well, I learned something new today. I always thought the pencils were part of the group but apparently they're not.

Seeing the iconic three diamond mark along with the name always made me think the pencils were related to the cars.

[mauvehaus]

Upon learning of a third Asahi branded thing, I once made the observation that Asahi must make everything. There's Asahi Pentax cameras, Asahi beer, and now this forgotten other thing. At which point someone kindly informed me that Asahi means rising sun, and seeing it in a company name is roughly equivalent to seeing "federal" or "national" in a US company name.

[xeonmc]

Reminds me of Ferrari sparkling wine, for a few years they were the only Ferrari’s on the podium.

[lucretian]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asahi_Kasei

[breggles]

Asahi Linux?

[picture]

"Union" is another good example

[williamdclt]

Nobody could blame you, Japan famously does have conglomerates making completely different products under the same brand. If Yamaha makes motorcycles and pianos, why wouldn't Mitsubishi make cars and pencils?

[kps]

This post was probably inspired by yesterday's “One Logo, Three Companies” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43245315

[teddyh]

Fascinating. This shows, beyond any doubt, why BIMI is such a scam.

[Henchman21]

Apologies, but what is “BIMI” in this context? I am unfamiliar with this acronym.

[username_here]

I think the poster is referring to "Brand Indicators for Message Identification[1]". A new(ish) protocol to display branded avatars for messages in email clients.

1. https://bimigroup.org

[teddyh]

Yes. We’ve had black-and-white low-resolution images in emails using the X-Face header since basically forever, and the Face header (allowing color a image) since 2005. The whole deal with BIMI is, purportedly, that the logo shown can be relied upon to not be faked, since each sender gets issued a (very expensive) certificate to sign e-mails with that logo. This certification (incidentally issued by all the old X.509 certificate issuers, whose business model imploded by free certificates from Let’s Encrypt and others) are reportedly based on verification of (visual) trademarks. But if, as in the linked article, different companies can have the same logo even if their name is the same and they are in the same country, then the supposed security of the BIMI logo is an obvious scam.

[Henchman21]

I appreciate the explanation; thank you!