Huddles

I've been sent a notecard telling me one of my tenants needs to change the name of a parcel because it contains the word "Huddles" and this is a trademark.

I've always thought huddles were dance animations and I'm not sure how anyone can try and claim it's a trademark, any thoughts?

Trademarks only apply to similar products. Just because that person supposedly trademarked the word "Huddles" doesn't mean football teams cant use it when they stand together in a group during the game. If your tenant is selling a similar product and using the same name tell them to take it up with the tenant. I would ignore it personally.

ya it's a multi hud not an animation..so if they are making huds then i would say it is a problem but anything else would not apply to it..they don't own the word huddles just the name used in that type of product

As for proof of trademark registration and there's a fairly good chance you'll never hear from them again.

Most of these kind of claims we're going to be seeing now that LL have made an issue out of it are going to be along the lines of "I've been using that name and I don't want anyone else to" rather than "I have paid to legally protect my brand".

It's a problem if someone is searching for Keiki's store using the search term "Huddles" and they end up on someone else's land (gaming traffic?)

Huh, Huddles do make HUDS. I have the HUDDLES AO HUD. So I can totally see how having two people making HUDS called Huddles would be a problem.

Considering it's not the first word in the parcel name I don't see how anyone is going to confuse that store for this one. However that's not the issue, the issue is whether the term describes a brand or an object. Plenty of people use the term "huddle".

Ignore it.

No one here owns the word Huddles. It can be used on a parcel without a problem. Even if it is a business.

Nobody else seems to worry about "traffic gaming" with keyword spamming, so why should it be a problem when its someone with a legitimate use has a word that someone else has used and made popular for their product.

If this kind of activity - accidental or deliberate - was a TOS violation, half the grid would be banned.

USPTO's trademark search page shows no registration of "Huddles", but I think using the word "huddles" in the parcel keywords of a place that's selling HUDs or animation-related HUDs is morally undesirable, regardless.

Spamming generic keywords, like "animation hud huds gadgets sex sex sex" is reasonably understandable because they are after all generic terms, but using other people's business names is simply antisocial. Imagine if every single scripted product maker put "mystitool" (which doesn't show up as trademarked either) into the name of their parcel!

... and there's far more 'morally undesirable' things going on in SL that are probably more important to be dealt with, to be honest.

Agreed! However, this is the one we're talking about right now.

Not if you are the maker of the original Huddles trying to protect your brand name. I'm not saying that's what is going on here for sure (the original post didn't say enough to tell) but if it is - the fact that there may be reprehensible things going on elsewhere in Second Life doesn't mean that creators should just let others ride their coattails because it's not the worst thing someone could possibly do. "Oh, someone's passing off their own products with my trade name, but hey, at least it's not kiddie porn, so I guess I'll just let it slide."

Maybe it's just me but as far as I'm concerned a huddle is when multiple people gather around, you see it in sport a lot. I've never seen anyone in sport doing a "mystitool".

When I've seen it in SL it's been in a club when someone has told me to touch their dance huddle to join with multiple people doing the same dance.

That's the difference between "Mystitool" and "huddle".

And here's the nub of the issue if you ask me. If it were someone using the word "huddles" in a context totally unrelated to Keiki's product, that would be fine by me. However, a competitor using the same name for their own product is an unethical ripoff.

It's the word "huddle" that is at the centre of the issue. Nobody is pretending they're selling anything other than their own products, it's quite clear that they aren't pretending to be any other business, they have their business name all over the products. They aren't using the word huddle as a trade name, they're using it as description of their items.

It's cool that Keiki's HUDDLES has become such a well-known product that it's spawned a generic term for using a HUD to group dance. People used to just call them a chimera.

Second thing: too bad people take advantage of the innovators of SL's ideas and inventions. It eventually gets where the really creative people don't want to give it away free anymore and that leads to ... generic everything.

Okay. I couldn't tell from your original post what I would need to form an opinion of the situation:

1. From whom is the notecard asking the person to stop using the word "Huddle"? Is it from the creator of the original Huddle? If not, what is the basis for sending the notecard?

2. What is the actual use of the word "Huddle" by the recipient of the notecard? You say they are not using the term "Huddle" as a trade name; that's some information but more detail would be helpful. Are they saying, for example, "our products are compatible with Huddle?" Are they saying "Our products offer the same functionality as Huddle for a fraction of the cost?"

My comment to Broccoli, as I stated, was not meant to be an analysis of your tenant's situation, but was rather a response to what I read as Broccoli's suggestion that there's no reason to care whether people are misappropriating the trade names of others, because there's more reprehensible stuff happening on the grid. I think that's a little fatalistic and short-sighted.

I see your argument; what you are getting at, in trademark terms, is that the term HUDDLE is "merely descriptive" of the product. In US trademark terms, a "merely descriptive" mark wouldn't be entitled to federal registration (without more) because the law should disfavor a registration that excludes others from using words that are necessary to describe features of their product.

I disagree with you, though, that HUDDLES is merely descriptive. I think it's more suggestive and fanciful. Touching someone's Huddle doesn't cause you to enter a huddle with them; it causes you to dance in synch with them. "Huddle" is a known word that has a meaning in the sports context, for example, but it's not generally used to be descriptive of unison dancing. The only reason it has the connotation of unison dancing in SL, in fact, is because of its use as a trade name for a device that can cause unison dancing.

That's just my view of the distinctiveness of HUDDLE, and it's once again not meant to be a comment on the OP's specific question, about which I don't have very much information.

@ciaran: I concur with this question. Knowing the actual parcel name in dispute is necessary.

Also, what are the products that they are selling? As I mentioned, if they are doing something completely unrelated to Keiki's HUD then I see no issue, but if they are making a competing animation HUD then your posts strike me as rationalizing unethical behavior.

First, it's not necessary to register a trademark for it to be valid. Registration simply makes it easier to prove and collect damages.

Your point about the definition of the word "huddle" is exactly the reason it's a reasonable trademark. If the word meaning of the word is the product being described, then the word itself can't be trademarked for that purpose. To repeat an example I used recently, "Apple" can be trademarked to refer to computers or music, but it can't be trademarked (by itself) to refer to apples. Since a HUD on your screen isn't at all the same as a huddle (football, rugby, or otherwise), and the name "Huddles" is simply a pun, not a description of the HUD, it makes sense as a trademark.

I've never seen anyone say "touch their dance huddle". If it's a popular usage, it may create an interesting question about the validity of the trademark, but I'm not sure.

I haven't seen any mention of what's actually happening on this parcel. If indeed it's being used for a store that sells HUDs (whether or not for dancing), then it could be an infringement. Likewise, if they're selling dance animations, even without a HUD, because of the close connection to that market. If it's a residence, or if they're selling clothing or other things that are unrelated, then that could be a valid usage, but doesn't seem like the sort of thing worth pressing.

Finally, I don't see how you, as the sim owner, have any responsibility here, but who knows? If I were you, I'd thank the sender of the notecard for making you aware of the issue, but assert that it's not your responsibility to enforce their trademark, and they should contact the parcel owner directly. But I'd also send a note to the owner of the parcel telling them of the complaint, and suggesting politely that unless they have a strong, ethical business case for using that name, their best course is to change the name.

The usual IANAL disclaimer applies. The above suggestion is business advice, not legal advice.

It's from a person who runs a business with that trade name. Their concern is that someone will believe they are buying their products.



Their use is "Their brand name, dance huddle." As opposed to "Huddles dance system". The notecard didn't actually complain about this usage, it complained about the word huddles appearing in the parcel name.



Well sexgen is an example of a trade name in a similar situation, but I don't think sexgen is such a generic term as huddle. People have every right to protect their trade names, the person who this notecard was aimed at is surprised at the request and I've suggested to the person behind the complaint that they sort it out between themselves. It could go a lot deeper than the parcel name.

This I would disagree with, although it's still relative to the actual wording of the parcel description. After all, the HUDDLES product is useless without animations provided by others, so saying that you provide content which works with someone else's product sounds fine to me.


eeeeh foul. You don't see Puffs tissues describing themselves as a brand of kleenex.

A different animation company sells an object called a chimera. I don't know if they have any interest in trademarking it, or whether popular usage has genericized the term so that they can't trademark it. But it is a similar situation.

Yeah, apparently everyone uses the word "huddles" to describe dance HUDs for sale. Search term "huddles" brings up lots of pages like this one: