• ameancow@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    This gives me the vibe of a meme someone would share on their midwest neighborhood’s Facebook group to “prove” that Medical academia is a scam, right next to a list of “chemicals” they put in your shampoo or pet food or something.

    It’s a funny little snippet but doesn’t “mean” anything. Words are silly and names for things can be hard to invent.

    • jmill@lemmy.zip
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      4 hours ago

      Yeah, drug names and Pokémon names are running into the same problem. They can’t reuse them, and there are so many already.

      Actually, I suppose a name being used for a drug or a Pokémon precludes it from being used for the other, so it is a very shared issue, lol.

      Wonder how far they have to reserve names in advance to prevent overlap. A Nintendo vs GSK court case for a name would be less absurd than many news stories this year.

      • booly@sh.itjust.works
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        4 hours ago

        Actually, I suppose a name being used for a drug or a Pokémon precludes it from being used for the other, so it is a very shared issue, lol.

        Theoretically, unrelated trademarks can have the exact same name in different fields, owned by completely different owners, but that generally only applies to trademarks that are regular words that are already in use: Apple Computer versus Apple Music (which the Beatles owned and ended up selling to Apple Computer), Monster Energy Drink versus Monster Cable versus Monster Jobs, Dove soap versus Dove chocolate, etc.

        Still, the law looks to likelihood of customer confusion, and maybe it would be too confusing to have a Pokemon named Ozempic.