[Legalissue]

Kodi is already registered in Europa.

http://oami.europa.eu/eSearch/#details/t.../007326846

You probably should think about another name.

[Ned Scott]

Yes... we already know about them.

It's registered in another market area than our software. Two different groups can use the same mark as long as they are in different product/service/market areas. That's why Apple Computer can't sue Applebee's Restaurant.

[User 146225]

no legal issues.

There are number of KODi trade names, all operating different markets. No Kodi or kodi. The case of the letters does have an affect

[Legalissue]

It's registered in another market area than our software.

No.

35 Retail services of retail stores and wholesale outlets, namely assortment and presentation of goods and services in the fields of household utensils and containers, bathroom and sanitary products, kitchenware, cleaning and care preparations, cleaning and care implements, tools, construction and renovation products, floor coverings, technology, electric apparatus, electronic apparatus, electrical goods, multimedia, entertainment, photography, playthings, children's goods, furniture, furnishings, lighting, decorative goods and gift articles, seasonal decorative goods, including decorative Christmas and Easter goods, cases and bags, purses, umbrellas and parasols, garden technology, plants, car accessories, porcelain, glass, cutlery, crockery, textile goods and clothing, accessories, haberdashery, pharmacy, jewellery, clocks and watches, spectacles, health, hygienic and beauty care, nutrition, tobacco and smokers' articles, foodstuffs, beverages, office goods and stationery, printed matter, paper and cellulose products, sport and leisure, car and bicycle accessories, animals, camping;services of retail stores and wholesale outlets, namely assortment of goods in the aforesaid fields (except transport), for others, to facilitate the viewing and purchase of these goods by consumers and customers;assortment of goods in the aforesaid fields (except transport) with the aid of electronic media, for others, to facilitate the viewing and purchase of these goods by consumers and customers.

The case of the letters does have an affect

No.
Protection of a registered trademark normally includes all customary spellings, especially upper and lower case.

Example:
ebay, Ebay, EBAY, eBay, ...

[jjd-uk]

That's for the selling of those goods so no it's not in the same trademark category as us.

[Memphiz]

Yep you even quoted the category:

35 Retail services of retail stores and wholesale outlets, namely assortment and presentation of goods and services

Are you a lawyer? I mean obviously you registered to our forum just for making us aware of something (judging from the name you selected for registration). So who are you?

[jjd-uk]

More likely someone who hates the name and are clutching at straws in order to get us to change our minds.

Does anyone seriously think we've not done due diligence and had a lawyer involved in the entire process advising us.

[ukyank]

You have to be using the same name in representing substantially the same business or product where there could be confusion to a reasonable person as to which product or business it is; merely using the same name is not an issue.
No one is going to confuse a discount retailer with a piece of software or vice-versa so that legal hurdle is easily cleared.
Of course that was likewise my reasoning that xbmc itself needn't be changed either

[noiz13]

i dont give a f-bomb what the name is i only care about the use of the product i don't care for product names.
i love XBMC (kodi) as a product but if it was called lemon drop squat i was stil be using it

[Ned Scott]

KODi is trademarked to sell goods and services related to "technology, electric apparatus, electronic apparatus, electrical goods, multimedia, entertainment".

If we ever sold our own Kodi hardware and we opened a "Kodi Store" (complete with applestore-esqe wood, glass, and polished metal look) store in Germany to sell it, then we'd probably have to work something out with them, as then we would have a store called Kodi.

We could go over to Germany and open a store called "I Like Fishsticks and Electronics" and sell a media box called Kodi and not violate their trademark. The software product itself is a different area of trademark.

We don't even sell anything (t-shirts are considered fundraising, but we haven't even done a Kodi shirt yet).

All of this was looked into before we went with the name Kodi. Our lawyers did their homework. So thanks, random internet stranger, but we got this.

[teeedubb]

Wait, you like fish sticks?

[Kib]

I love that episode

[park_gate]

More likely someone who hates the name and are clutching at straws in order to get us to change our minds.

Does anyone seriously think we've not done due diligence and had a lawyer involved in the entire process advising us.

Something looks wrong to me, most people try and stay away from lawyers as much as possible!

Microsoft is the only company I am aware that might be in a position to object to the name of XBMC.

But not only have they not object but they are selling an XBMC Buddy App.

http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-gb/...fd0d984899

So there actions to date would make it difficult for them to object in the future.

For a long time Apple iTunes did not have Beatles songs because they had a dispute about using the same registered trade name.

I would say if you going to come up with a brand new name try and avoid one that already registered.

Was the real reason for the name change to distance XBMC from XBMC HUB?

If so, what is there to stop XBMC HUB from taking Kodi source code and doing a search and replace on the code changing Kodi to XBMC and then offer this to the general public?

If this happens isn't that going to create even more confusion?

What did the lawyers say about this during due diligence?

Terry

PS for the record I'm no fan of the name XBMC, I find it a bit clumsy and if people asked me I tell them I used a Home Theatre PC to record TV programs.

[Ned Scott]

While our agreement doesn't actually say we can't name this other party, we don't want to have any users "riot" and start rocking the boat with them simply because they're mad about the rename. We'll likely say exactly who they were and all of the details on our agreement once it seems "safe" and people are calmer about this hot topic.

However, it is public information. Many users have already figured it out, and thankfully they've been calm about it.

This company was just following trademark law, which in the US is confusing, complicated, and slightly broken. It's not something you can really blame anyone for. They've been really nice and helpful during this entire process, and both parties came to an agreement we though was acceptable.

I can say it wasn't Microsoft. It was another software company, but most of you have probably never heard of them. There are a lot of large companies that are in various markets that aren't always consumer facing, which is why most people haven't made the connection.

"XBMCHUB" has actually evolved into a reasonable group of people who finally understand our concerns about the name, and they've changed their name to TVADDONS. Even if some other group tries to usurp the name XBMC, our agreement allows us to enforce our common-law trademark claim on "XBMC", as our agreement allows us to keep using it for the XBMC Foundation name. Which is confusing, and I wasn't totally sure about before, but they've semi-recently clarified this with us. The end result is that there will actually be less of an issue with people using "XBMC" than there was before our rename.

[park_gate]

Hi Ned Scott,

Thanks for the explination. I've been using XBMC for some time now but not following the legal stuff. I discovered the name change yesterday when I went to get the latest version, my current version is about a year old.

When I found out about the change I did an internet search to try and see what was going on.

Thanks for a great product, I plan to keep on using it whatever it's called.

Terry