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12/21/09
I had a Nixxo pager at about the same time that gave me news headlines and weather reports, but anything more interesting than that cost extra. And eventually all I got was the Las Vegas weather (we're in Los Angeles) so it wasn't too hard to pull the plug.
12/21/09
It was funny after all these years to see someone writing about it.
12/21/09
...or would that be the opposite?
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12/16/09
12/16/09
My futuredog's name is Nexus, I demand paychecks!
12/16/09
12/16/09
NEWS FLASH: Nexus is a common English word. You don't own it.
12/16/09
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12/16/09
Hell, Apple paid for "Mighty Mouse" and they did it for the sheer fact that they wanted a pithy name.
12/16/09
12/16/09
Billy is right. She might not have a trademark claim but she might have something. I'd imagine there has been talk about paying "some" kind of fee to the estate but they figured they could worry about that later.
Google was smart no doubt. The name makes perfect sense as it is. I'm sure its some "the first mobile nexus" or some kinda marketing spin but if there is also the homage type meaning attached to it and she wants to be a dick she might have some claim.
It comes down much less to how common the word is then to what the background of the name is and if there can be said to be any consumer confusion.
12/16/09
Besides all that, should Blizzard also be sued because they use the name for one of the buildings in starcraft(Protoss Nexus)?
12/16/09
Copyright and trademark are two different things. There was actually a lot of discussion when those two movies came out about exactly what you're talking about. There was also supposed to be a Nine (or N9ne or some other silly spelling I don't remember). One the one hand its just kind of bad marketing on their part. They really should of just cut confusion off at the head and named one of the movies something different. They wouldn't have any kind of trademark claim because its just starting out. If in your example 9 had been a runaway success that spawned all kinds of highly successful related merchandise cementing it in the public consciousness then District 9 came out there might be a claim of trademark infringement if they could show that they were entering the same field and playing on the similarity in the name to deliberately confuse consumers. Might have worked might not have.
Its kinda the same thing here. I imagine she may have some claim. Just not 100% sure what it would be. Nexus-6 probably wasn't trademarked nor was any part of Nexus in conjunction with PKD's novel. I question how well known it is in the public consciousness too. I don't think you're going to have any claim of confusion. At the same time in this case there if google is really doing an "homage" and she's going to get pissy about it they might be in trouble. Gets into an idea of "is PKD endorsing this" which again gets us back to the public saying "who the hell is PKD?"
Your Starcraft example doesn't really work. Like I said its not as much about the word as it is consumer confusion for the word in the same space. Apple can't make every grocery store start calling them "spherical red fruits" but say that Apple Jacks (even with the second word) said "screw it we're out of the cereal biz and we're going to start making computers and PMPs" that wouldn't go far.
12/16/09
12/16/09
And Isa was probably spoken because she's probably the executor of the estate or at least the spokesperson.
12/16/09
It pisses me off how everybody wants to sue over everything these days.
12/16/09
12/16/09
On the flip side if Roddenberry wasn't pleased for some reason they wouldn't have done it.
Still the overall point is valid. It doesn't matter that enterprise is a word in the dictionary with a long nautical heritage. If someone else released a product called Enterprise that was clearly trying to cash in on the ST connection there would undoubtedly be a suit. As there should be really. People get upset about it for some reason but there is a reason that these protections are in place.
12/16/09
Yes, there is a reason that these protections are in place, which is why it's all the worse when they are abused. Copyrights and trademarks were meant to be used as a shield, not a hammer.
12/16/09
Oh you're talking about the whole Blade Runner/Do Androids Dream thing, which I don't think I've actually mentioned once in this discussion.
12/17/09
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12/17/09
Read the rest of the comments. Not once have I said "she obviously deservers to get paid." I'm not even 100% sure where you got the "obviously" you put in quotes in this thread from.
I'm not admitting I'm wrong because well, I'm not wrong. What we were talking about was that a word being in the dictionary has nothing to do with the fact that it can or can't be trademarked. In this particular thread it was talking about Enterprise. The relevance to the general topic being that all the people saying "you can't trademark Nexus", are flat out wrong.
You decided that my parallel was making a much larger comment about the whole thing so you added in "obviously" and "cash in" which again I never said.
So to save you the time I'll retell the same thing I've been saying in the comments since this got started. I think you're right in that the book is a little too obscure for her to say that there is going to be widespread consumer confusion over it. The fact that Nexus-6 or anything similar from the book isn't actually a trademark makes any trademark claim difficult for her. At the same time I have started to think that she might have some claim that it implies at the least an endorsement. Here you could use the the Enterprise/Rodenberry example. It was an endorsement on one level and he was perfectly pleased with it. She might not be.
As a bit of an aside (since apparently I have to label them now). Its completely blowing it out of the water to say that she is rushing to cash in on this. Not once has she said she is going to sue. All that really happened was the paper was writing an article about the supposed google phone/Do Androids dream connection and asked what she thought about it. There I will say that she has every right to be upset about it and look at options. Its probably a by product of how all the nexus one rumors started up in the first place. Maybe google was going to talk to her maybe not.