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/vr/ - Retro Games

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File: 43 KB, 480x626, nintendo.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9943059 No.9943059 [Reply] [Original]

Discuss

>> No.9943062

>>9943059
you can tell this was written by a trademark/patent attorney. nintendo can go fuck themselves.

>> No.9943085

>>9943059
>deliberately trying to brush of Nintendo as a genericized trademark like 'bandaid' or 'bic' even though genericized trademarks sell better

it's like they hate money

>> No.9943093

>>9943059
>>9943085
maybe it's reverse psychology

an attempt at viral marketing

what if the news picked it up?

"video game industry giant Nintendo is asking consumers NOT to use their name as a generic term for video game products"

"Nintendo is dominating the video game industry to such a degree that people are using Nintendo to describe all video game products"

"Nintendo is all video game products"

"Nintendo is video games"

"Nintendo"

"NINTENDO!"

>> No.9943114

There is nothing to discuss, the US has stupid backwards laws so they had to defend the trademark or it could fall into public domain

Examples

>Aspirin
>Still a Bayer trademark name for acetylsalicylic acid in about 80 countries, including Canada and many countries in Europe, but declared generic in the U.S.[1]

>Cellophane
>Still a registered trademark of Innovia Films Ltd in Europe and many other jurisdictions. Genericized in the U.S. Originally a trademark of DuPont.[3][4] A thin, transparent sheet made of regenerated cellulose.

>Linoleum
>Floor covering,[17] originally coined by Frederick Walton in 1864, and ruled as generic following a lawsuit for trademark infringement in 1878; probably the first product name to become a generic term.[18]

>> No.9943164

>>9943114
I don't think it's that stupid, the point of a trademark is to distinguish one brand from other competitors, but if the language has changed so that one particular trademark has become the word everyone uses for that thing, it's no longer useful as a brand identifier. Nobody even knows that aspirin, cellophane or linoleum were trademarks unless they look up examples of genericised trademarks. In the UK we have a ton of them too, like every ballpoint pen being a biro, or every vacuum cleaner being a hoover. Hoover is even a verb, as in "I hoovered the living room".

>> No.9943167

>>9943164
It's stupid because it punishes a brand just because it's successful. Doesn't that go against the very principle of America's capitalism? Sounds more like a communist thing "oh so you have a good thing going on here? Well now it's not yours anymore, it's everybody's, tough luck!"

>> No.9943178

>>9943167
Doesn't stopping people from calling aspirin aspirin, like every single English speaking human being calls it, to protect one specific company's trademark go against the principle of America's freedom?

It's not punishing a company, it's just reflecting reality. Aspirin IS generic, whether Bayer says it's theirs or not. That's just how language and culture works.

>> No.9943183

>>9943178
The poster in the OP is meant for retailers, not random people. They wanted to avoid Nintendo becoming synonymous with video games because then Sega could just release a "Nintendo" themselves. It's 100% in Nintendo's interest to keep the word Nintendo associated with THEIR video games.

>> No.9943192

>>9943183
I agree, and I think Nintendo have been successful in doing that. Nintendo still means Nintendo, and not video games generically. If they hadn't bothered, and Nintendo had become a generic word in common use to mean "video game", then I think it would be right that they lose that trademark, but that hasn't happened.

>> No.9943238

The fact that the colors of the advertisement makes Mario's face to look like a cartoon parody of the Big Brother is unintentional, and because of this it's fun and creepy at the same time.

>> No.9943459
File: 77 KB, 610x343, nintendolandmariochase610.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9943459

>>9943059
I really miss the old Nintendo. They don't even attempt to recapture some of that former glory nowadays. Best thing they've done in recent years is those Famiclone Game and Watch handhelds. Even Mario Maker 2 was like four years ago

>> No.9943513

>>9943059
Then why did my dad always yell at me to stop playing crash on my nintendo?
Check and mate, athetits.

>> No.9943738

>>9943059
They're sore winners, like how they seethed over their games being rented out in the west
>NOOO GAIJIN YOU MUST PAY FULL RETAIR PRICE TO PRAY GAME!

>> No.9943950

>>9943114
>acetylsalicylic acid
No wonder they just call it aspirin.

>> No.9943967

>>9943059
It's not a fucking adjective, it's a proper noun used as an attributive.

>> No.9943973

>>9943167
every brand should aspire to be the name everyone uses to refer to the concept itself. it's the highest honor.

>> No.9943989

>>9943973
You'd think so, but Google has to fight tooth and nail to stop "googling" from becoming a non-trademarked term for internet searches. It they didn't have the money, it 100% would have by now.

>> No.9944002

>>9943164
Your mum hoovered me

>> No.9944041

>>9943059
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYNcJj2QDhk

>> No.9944102

>>9943059
>Mario thanks you.

>> No.9944287

>>9943114
On a similar note, professional sports teams have to sue small-town middle and high schools all the time for using their name and logo on their teams. You will literally see $5b franchises sue a school with 100 students in the middle of nowhere. And whenever this happens, media reports on it and the general public says 'muh evil corporation'. But the reality is that American law basically forces them to do this so that their logo doesn't become generic public domain property. If enough schools used the Denver Broncos logo then the courts could eventually rule that Denver's ownership doesn't even own it anymore.

>> No.9944301

>>9943085
>grandma goes to target
>hi can I buy a nintendo
>yeah here's the switch

>grandma goes to target when nintendo is a generalized trademark
>hi can I buy a nintendo
>which one like the playstation? an older kid might want that
>ok sure

>> No.9944321

>>9943059
>It's an adjective!
>Oh, except for, you know, THE Nintendo. The company.
>The one that has the large logo at the bottom of this very page containing the single word "Nintendo"; the name of the noun I just tried to tell you didn't exist.

>> No.9944378

>>9943114
cellophane is the weird one to me because literally the only people I ever hear say cellophane are bongs. Everyone normal just says plastic or cling wrap. Maybe saran wrap (which is a trademark that isn't genericized)

>> No.9944421

>>9944378
i heard it in that nine inch nails song

>> No.9944871

>>9944378
Saran/cling wrap is a soft plastic wrap for the wrapping and preservation of doodstuffs. Cellophane is a translucent stiffer Plastic wrap of different colors for wrapping gifts.

>> No.9944885

idk how it was everywhere else but where I was, the NES was "the Nintendo" until the Super Nintendo came out. Then we started calling the NES the "regular Nintendo" by virtue of the SNES being the SUPER Nintendo. I know a lot of rural folk who still call it that way

>> No.9944886

>>9943459
It’s a incredibly gay company for weirdos now, the people who own modern Nintendo stuff for casual play are fine but the ones who obsess over it tend to be into unironic poly relationships or are 400lbs. The company has lost all charm and they’re starting to give in to the ESG slop they seemingly resisted for years.

>> No.9945025
File: 64 KB, 775x442, lego_sorry.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9945025

>>9943183
Not sure about Nintendo (I'm pretty sure I remember seeing notices like OPs in Nintendo Power), but I know other companies like Lego have given notices to customers about protecting their trademarks.

>> No.9945037

>>9944378
I'm a burger and I sometimes refer to it as cellophane unless specifically referring to a brand. Might be a regional dialect thing.

>> No.9945067

>>9943059
It's not a Nintendo. it's a Nintendo Entertainment System.
You say the whole thing, like A Tribe Called Quest.

>> No.9945324

>>9943167
>America’s capitalism
The same capitalism that gave us “too big to fail”?

>> No.9945390

>>9943459
>I really miss the old Nintendo
>WiiU image
Apply yourself

>> No.9945407

>>9944885
>idk how it was everywhere else but where I was, the NES was "the Nintendo" until the Super Nintendo came out. Then we started calling the NES the "regular Nintendo" by virtue of the SNES being the SUPER Nintendo. I know a lot of rural folk who still call it that way

this but we also started calling them NES and Super NES midway through the Super NES's lifetime. i may have been personally influenced by Nintendo Power.

>> No.9945414

>>9943062
hi
it wasnt
love you

>> No.9945503

>>9944301
In the latter case Sony would've 100% definitely called their system the "Playstation Nintendo" too.
It's not in anyone's interest to have their company name so diluted people aren't aware it IS a company name any more.

>> No.9945509

>>9945067
plenty of people call them tribe lol

>> No.9945532

>>9943059
I never used the word "Nintendo" like this and I think the only people that did where either dads who didn't give a fuck or retards, but had I seen this whiny ad back in the day I would have done the opposite just out of spite.

>> No.9945569

>>9945532
>yes, i will correct my borderline alcoholic dad born in the 60s about how it's not a nintendo
chad move tbqh

>> No.9945571

>>9945532
As already pointed out, this "ad" was made for shop employees and shit, primarily ones that were too old to know better. You'd never have seen it back in the day.

>> No.9945574

>>9945571
Fair enough

>> No.9945626
File: 12 KB, 474x258, OIP.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9945626

>>9945025
What happened with Legos? They used to be simple

>> No.9945656

>>9945532
>>9945571
Here's an example people can probably identify more with: My 5 year old niece has a ton of Barbie dolls and other Barbie-esque plastic dolls. She calls them all "barbies", and despite the fact that I know there's multiple different brands in there, I have no idea how I'm supposed to know which of these dolls are actual Barbie dolls and which are something else. It's also not something I really care enough about learning, so in my case it's whatever. But I'm sure Mattel really really doesn't like this, and if I was working in a toy store, they'd be equally interested in making sure I didn't use "barbies" as a generic name for this type of doll. And that's extremely understandable.

>> No.9945662

>>9945626
It's for the same reason as the message in the OP. Calling the bricks "legos" (which is really just an anglosphere thing) to the point it becomes genericized means all the other companies making cheap knockoffs can call their bricks "legos" too, just like if people called video game consoles "nintendos" Sega, Sony and Microsoft could just start releasing nintendos themselves.

>> No.9945692

"A Nintendo" sounds stupid now that they've made a dozen different ones

>> No.9945701

>>9945692
My mom still calls all video games "playing Nintendo" to this day. Such as, "Can you hook up the Xbox so the kids can play Nintendo during the party?"

>> No.9945702

In my opinion Lego is a mass noun and shouldn't be pluralised.

>> No.9945721

>>9945692
"Nintendos" is just what a lot of people, especially older ones that just thought of them as toys anyway, called what's currently known as "consoles".
Back in the early 80s they were called Ataris for the same reason. Atari didn't like that any better.

>> No.9945734

>>9945701
That's cute. Based 80s/90s style Grandma

>> No.9945741

>>9945025
holy shit fuck Lego.

>> No.9945745

>>9943059
hahaha stupid faggots. moms even called my sega genesis my "new nintendo"

haha get fucked

>> No.9945790

All this because a judge made a dumb decision 150 years ago and it set a "precedent"

Other countries don't have this problem you know

>> No.9945824

>>9945324
Fascism is anti-capitalist, anon.

>> No.9945827

>>9945745
On that note, I know a guy whose dad called his Super Nintendo a "Sego".

>> No.9945831

>>9943085
No one calls a pen a bic, you nigger.

>> No.9945841

>>9944378
Bong here, never once heard someone refer to it as cellophane.

>> No.9945856

>>9945841
same everyone just said clingfilm here lol

then again unlike the West Midlands (where most of the Britbongs online seem to come from), here in Kent we're not so affected by Americanisms so it seems

>> No.9945934

>>9945390
WiiU was 10 years ago, old man.

>> No.9946106

Seems fair

>> No.9946112

jokes on them my parents called my Nintendo a Sega

>> No.9946136

>2000
>Really want an N64, like my cousin has, to play Goldeneye and Zelda.
>Mum picks me up from school one day.
>"We borrowed a Nintendo from the toy library, it's at home"
>Excited as fuck.
>It's a Playstation.
Still had fun with it, until our house got broken into by some cunts and they stole it. That was a pain with the insurance company. Pricks also stole my Gameboy and my train-shaped money box. Which kind of next level shitcunt steals a kid's money box?

>> No.9946151

>>9944321
this
what an embarrassing picture all round

>> No.9946180

>>9946136
Drugscum, probably. Did your parents lock up properly?

>> No.9946206

>>9944378
It would surely have taken you longer to post this nonsense than it would have to simply educate yourself on what cellophane is. Do you thrive on ignorance?

>> No.9946218

>>9945841
>Bong here
>never once heard
Americans may speak "bastard English", but your shameless devolution of the language is an irredeemable travesty.

>> No.9946230

>>9946180
Yeah, the house was locked, but we didn't have a house alarm.

>> No.9946234

>>9946218
"Never once heard" is a perfectly correct and coherent statement ESL friend.

>> No.9946239

>>9945841
>Bong here, never once heard someone refer to it as cellophane.
then you must be most poorly educated bong i have EVER encountered.

>> No.9946240

>>9946234
> jimmy savile clones btfo by an american
> ..again
Many such cases.

>> No.9946347

>>9943989
keep sucking corporate dicks, you retarded shills. who the fuck are you to police language. trademark is only so nobody else can make money with your name, it has nothing to do with fucking language you brain-dead moron.

>> No.9946789

>>9945934
And they weren't really that different than they are today, if anything they were worse. Remember how hard they pushed the family/babby console image for the Wii U? It was even more embarrassing than how they handled the Wii

>> No.9947563 [DELETED] 

>>9945792
>>9943821
>>9944368
>>9946880
>>9942605
>>9947348

>> No.9947587

>>9944421
starfuckers?

>> No.9947609

>>9944378
>>9945841
>>9945856
Cellophane is not kitchen plastic wrap, it's a craft supply. How did you never encounter cellophane in school art classes your whole life?

>> No.9947641

>>9947609
The only school arts and crafts stuff I've encountered was construction/manila paper, caryons, markers, pens/pencils, paint, and, clay. Never have I seen cellophane used in art contexts in my school.

>> No.9947745
File: 168 KB, 1600x1600, 1032367_00_610699_1[1].jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9947745

>>9947641
Really? You never used colored cellophane to make homemade 3D glasses or color filters or kaleidoscopes? That kinda stuff was all over my elementary school experience.

>> No.9947994

>>9947745
NTA, but I'm American and have never used cellophane in any context, nor even really encountered it being used by anyone else. I know that it exists, but that's as far as it goes.

>> No.9948245

>>9945662
Because that totally happened with "Xerox" machines. I swear you people just make up whatever reason you think sounds fine and then claim it as factual truth.

>> No.9948249

>>9946234
This post is correct.
>>9946240
This post is embarrassing.

>> No.9948491

>>9947745
looks like plastic wrap to me man

>> No.9948497

>>9947994
Same here. I know theater kids got to play with gels but I was never a theater kid.

>> No.9948576

>>9943989
>>9945025
Same with Adobe and "photoshopping". I guess companies really don't like generic usage of their trademarks. Why? It's free advertising

>> No.9948607

>>9945503
Regardless whether or not 'Nintendo' is the generic name for a Video games machine, it is still a copyrighted name, so Sony could not just name their consoles "Playstation Nintendo".

>> No.9948795
File: 309 KB, 3000x3000, il_fullxfull.1281838212_tmp3[1].jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9948795

>>9948491
No, it's stiffer and thicker than plastic wrap. It crinkles and doesn't stick to itself at all. Lots of plastic packaging is made from cellophane, like pic related.

>> No.9948798

>>9947994
You encounter cellophane all the time, it's very commonly used in product packaging, as seen in >>9948795. You just didn't know what to call it before.

>> No.9948803

Funny enough I only learned recently that both Weed Wacker and Shop Vac were trademarked brand names and not generic terms to describe those tools. The company that makes Shop Vac puts on the box "If it doesn't say Shop-Vac, then it isn't a Shop-Vac™"

>> No.9949241

>>9948576
You're not allowed to trademark generic words or individuals' names, to prevent someone from claiming a trademark on "pizza" or one John Smith from trademarking his own name and then going after other John Smiths who use their name in their business and so on. So that means if a trademarked word or name becomes used in a generic sense too frequently the company won't be able to protect it from improper use because the person they take action against can make the argument that it's a generic word everyone uses. As with anything legal, it's all up in the air until it's tested in court but most companies won't take any chances so they make sure to leave a huge paper trail of precedent with regard to protecting their trademark at every possible turn.

>> No.9949643

>>9945025
kek
>from 2005
that sure worked out well for them huh? Never heard anyone not just say "legos".

>> No.9949832

>>9943059
I remember in 4th grade we had an assembly with some frisbee throwers putting on a show and they kept stressing not to call it a frisbee but a "flying disc". After that all the kids kept calling them frisbees.

>> No.9949971
File: 254 KB, 1000x1502, 9386.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9949971

>>9949241
It got tried fairly recently here in Norway (2016). Here, the common term for potato chips is "potetgull", literally "potato gold". This was ACTUALLY a brand name owned by manifacturer Maarud, who sued the competing manifacturer Kims when they called one of their products potetgull as well.
It was taken to court and the judge ruled that the "potetgull" term had become so generic at this point everyone were free to use it, though Kims still decided to be nice and drop their use of the word. The court case got massive public attention since pretty much the entire nation had NO idea the only potato chip bags that actually said "potetgull" on them were Maarud brand ones.

>> No.9950138

>>9948798
Ah, interesting. I've always assumed those were some other type of plastic, like a mid-density polyethylene, since I've never heard them referred to as cellophane packaging. Now I'm very curious to see how common it is across the next few products I buy.
The texture and transparency does seem to be a close match to a lot of them.

>> No.9950171

>>9943059
Joy!

>> No.9950174

>>9949832
That's the most 90s thing I've heard all day

>> No.9950857

>>9943167
Its usually another way around, big companies try to steal words from people, then patent troll. Like monster

>> No.9951483

>>9943059
Nintendo
i
n
t
e
n
d
o

>> No.9951529

>>9943167
America's rules were originally written by the rich and have and always will bias the rich. Like that other anon said these laws are actually abused by fat cats more than they hurt them, really good example is the song Happy Birthday being a Warner Chappell owned copyright until 2016 even though its original writer and historical origin wasnt even clear. Or Disney claiming ownership of stories that are based on public domain fables like Snow White and Hercules and suing people making the same stories claiming their designs are too close to Disney's.

>> No.9952234 [DELETED] 

>>9949839
>>9949296
>>9949181
>>9950982
>>9951062
>>9949567
>>9949645
>>9951846
>>9944938

>> No.9952343

>discuss
American consumers were idiots who called all video games "Nintendo", just like a few regions call all soda regardless of type or manufacturer "Coke" or searching anything on the internet regardless of search engine "Googling it".
Similar shit happened with Playstation and Xbox, though maybe not as extreme as this.

>> No.9952606

>>9945831
Lighter, you double nigger

>> No.9952628

>>9952606
They don't call lighters "bics", either you triple nigger. And while we're at it, razors too.

>> No.9952819

>>9943114
damn that guy lost his trademark in 14 years