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by seanhunter
100 days ago
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That seems pretty normal to me. Try this thought experiment. Suppose I make an accessory that adds an ironing board to the back of F150 trucks[1] and I call my company “Fordboard”? Do you think that portmanteau is a trademark violation or not? I think Ford probably would fight and win against me if I did such a thing, in particular because I am using the registered mark (Ford) to refer to the actual thing so I can’t pretend that’s just a coincidence. That is also the case here with gitclassic. If I called my guitar shop that I might have more of a leg to stand on. There’s more discussion of the legal aspects of portmanteau words here https://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2020/07/almost-everything-you-... [1] I didn’t say it’s a good business idea, I came up with the portmanteau first. |
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I would naively expect it to depend on whether the mark could reasonably be confused by a customer with the name in question. To that end fordboard and gitclassic seem problematic since they read like two separate words, one of which is the protected mark. In contrast, something like gitea seems like it ought to be in the clear - no one is ever going to think "git [space] ea huh wonder what ea by git is". (Ford should totally release a vehicle under the name Board that would be hilarious.)
> it is better when there is an overlap in the distinctive sound of the two words.
From the article you linked - this matches my intuition and is largely why I feel like gitea ought to be in the clear. Unfortunately it seems to be about trademarking portmanteaus as opposed to the creation of portmanteaus using one or more trademarks. (More is better - my next terrible idea is gitzurite.)