Huddles

I did a quick search for the term "HUDDLES" in the US Government Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS). It doesn't appear that anyone has paid the US$275 fee to trademark that term for anything having to do with SL, dancing, or HUDs.

That said....


QFT

that search is out of date, I've removed the word from my picks in light of this issue.

Actually most of those entries appear to either be picks linking to Keiki's store (she owns the Animation Warehouse) or animators who provide dances to put in her HUD (which as I said, I think is perfectly kosher.) You're right about a couple people who appear to be using her brand name to describe their HUD, and they've probably gotten the same notecard mentioned by the OP. Note that the people who come up in search are not necessarily the infringer's directly, but rather people who've added the infringer's store to their picks (which incidentally makes all the more vivid how such ripping off of people's names affects things.)

Unregistered marks and trade names do enjoy a certain level of protection in U.S. law. However, it's usually restricted by geography.

I've never heard of the product talked about here. I've never heard the term used generically. Makes me wonder if the experts called in to research and testify to the enforceability due to use in commerce and/or unenforceability due to generic use will have to start defining SL trade as dependent on "social geography"!

It's absolutely fine to say that, but it's not fine to incorporate their name into your own branding.

Suppose I were to set up a store selling xcite-compatible products from a variety of creators. If I called the parcel "xTreme xCessories for Xcite products", that would probably ok, since it's clear that 'Xcite' isn't being used as part of the brand. But if I called the parcel "Everything Xcite!", then it wouldn't be, because it's being used as a brand by me, not a description of my products.

The usual IANAL disclaimer applies.

I just did the search and took the picture about 5 minutes ago. Probably update later today or tomorrow. Nice of you to remove it, but I still wonder if the (now) generic use of the word "huddles" makes that necessary?

In case you missed it because we seem to have posted at the same time, I responded to your image on the previous page.

I'd agree that trademarks restricted by geography are less likely to be registered, if only because such businesses typically have fewer resources and less need.

But a quick look at the Apple trademark list, http://www.apple.com/legal/trademark/appletmlist.html, shows quite a few unregistered trademarks (some of which may have registration pending, but I doubt they all do).

Thanks to those who have posted the search evidence that use of the term "Huddle" has become generic.

It's very interesting that this has happened. If the creator of the original Huddles would like to have exclusive use of the term (I am not saying this is the case because even with the OP's clarifications I am still not certain whether the notecard came from that person or not), s/he may have already missed the boat. Alternatively, s/he may be looking at that same evidence and trying to stem the tide before it gets much worse. I don't know; it's interesting to think about.

I'd personally say that whether or not it's now become generic, we should respect it, simply because it would be really awful to create a world where you have to spend $200 or so, plus give up your real world details (they have to go on the trademark register), to prevent essentially automatically losing your brand name if your product is a success.

Again, please refer to my post responding to Sansarya's image. That image does not prove that the term has become generic. I mean, no single image could prove that, but that image is particularly misleading for reasons that I explained. Those search results are a mix of picks to Keiki's store (she owns the Animation Warehouse,) animators who provide animations for HUDDLES (Ravanne, Zach Wolf,) a person who has a pick to an infringing store and may not have any direct connection to infringing activity, and one or two infringers who've probably also gotten notecards.

And anyway, as I also alluded to with my example about kleenex (ie. despite the fact that consumers use the term "kleenex" to describe any facial tissue, Puff still cannot describe their product as a kind of kleenex,) the fact that a word has become generic to consumers doesn't make it okay for businesses to use the term generically. That's a really grey area, but a good rule of thumb is, if the disputed term has come into existence within your lifetime (and this obviously applies to any SL-specific terms,) then it is not okay to use for your business.

Given the follow-up note asserting that most of those instances are by the person who actually makes and sells the Huddles brand HUD, it's premature to call that conclusive evidence. It's certainly an argument in favor, but only a court decision would make it conclusive.

Observe that Kleenex and Xerox still have their trademarks, in spite of widespread popular usage as generic terms. I'm not sure what it takes these days to rule that a trademark has become generic, but it seems likely to be a lot more complicated than simply showing the results of a search.

That's a pretty amazing list! Of course it's reflective of resources and "need" (read: advertising/trade presence), otherwise there would be some high hurdles for storefronts the world over. I'd bet that if Apple pursued enforcement of an identical use in commerce in the same type of service for any of the listed marks, they'd have a strong argument given their relatively pervasive presence.

I just found it funny that SL, this tiny corner of the 'net, has marks that are made relevant not by physical geography, or even online presence, but because they're popular within a certain social group (SL clubbers).

I think the issue is that those were already trademarked, _before_ they became generic.

I believe that there are several merchants selling populated and/or modified versions of Keiki Lemieux's HUDDLES device, just as there are several merchants selling populated AOs based on Ziggy Puff's ZHAO II.

I've never checked into it, but I've always assumed these merchants were using the HUDDLES under license or with the permission of the creator.

Interesting point, and yet another complicating factor in the "the term is generic" debate.

Sorry if I was unclear; I didn't call the search results conclusive evidence and I didn't mean suggest they were conclusive evidence; they are merely evidence.

If one were actually undertaking to show that a mark had become generic, evidence of generic use in the field would be one important contributing piece of the case. Of course, evidence of uses that are actually licensed or sanctioned by the mark owner could actually run the opposite way, showing that a mark had not become generic. That would depend upon the degree of control that the original mark owner exercised over those uses, upon how careful the mark owner was to prevent those without license or permission from using the term, and other factors as well.

If you think I've made things seem too simple I have almost certainly not stated myself clearly. I don't think I could ever be accused of oversimplifying trademark discussions around here!

Now this is interesting, what Huddles device? I was under the impression that it was a trade name and that there was no actual device called Huddles, I thought there were Huddles - Product name, rather than Huddle itself being a product.

I think you're right - the HUD product in question is (I think) the "Huddles EZ Animator Deluxe".

Search for "huddles" on SLX, or go to http://www.imakehuddles.com/

Looks like HUDDLES is the name of the product line, not the device itself. huh, never noticed that distinction. Not sure why that makes a difference to you though; either way, it's still a brand name.

She does have the trademark indicated on her site: http://imakehuddles.com/wordpress/

It makes a lot of difference. If the issue is merely with the word "Huddles" in a parcel name it's a lot less of a can of worms to be worried about that the word "huddle" being used as a product name.

If all that needs to be done to rectify this is for Huddles to be replaced by huddle then it's not really a huge issue, they should be able to sort that out between themelves without lots of wailing.

I'm not sure simply switching to "huddle" instead of "huddles" makes a difference. I mean, it's a pretty cheeky semantic gambit. The term obviously still connects to the brand name, and anyway the logical multiple is still "huddles" (one dance huddle, two dance huddles) in which case you are right back to infringing.

The generic term in this case would be "dance HUD" not "dance huddle."

There are something like 198 instances of the word "huddles" used in the Search (all), not all of them Picks in peoples' profiles. Searching using the Places menu, however, turns up about 15-20 places with "huddles" in their key words, not all of them using licensed HUDDLES™ products, but most do.

It's a mixed bag. Kudos to Keiki for making a product that is so popular people assumed it meant HUD controlled group dancing. Sad that it misleads those searching for the HUDDLES™ products.