Social networking darling Digg is in a spot of bother over the rights to use there own name (Digg) following action by Lucasfilm (producers of Star Wars) to block an application from Digg to register Digg as a trademark.
The application from Lucasfilm argues that Digg infringes on their existing trademark “The Dig”, a computer game launched by Lucasfilm in 1995.
It’s some what questionable as to whether Digg would be forced to stop using Digg as a trading name, but certainly not beyond the realms of possibility if Lucasfilm were successful in their opposition to the Digg trademark application and then sought to enforce it’s trademark by demanding that Digg stop using the name.
The real question though has got to be made to the VC firms that funded the company without checking the rights on the name to begin with, Omidyar Network and Greylock partners amongst them. The FIRST thing investors usually look for in a company is security of IP and naming rights, and yet it would appear at the time of funding that Kevin Rose and friends hadn’t successfully secured a trademark for the name of the company itself.
Originally posted on February 22, 2007 @ 6:50 pm
That’s so absurd. Back in around 1997, I registered a domain called “diginc.com” (DIG, Inc.). I was going to call it diggit (after the Skinny Puppy song “dig it”), but decided against it.
I never had any trouble about the name, and even had a request to sell the domain. (I gave it up quite some time ago). While my site may have had more in common with Digg (being about digital media), there’s just no commonality between Digg and The Dig. More corporate bullshit by big bullies.
Perhaps they feel that in order to keep their trademark they need to defend it in this case, but I don’t see the correlation between the two. If the two companies had anything in common (Apple Itunes Music Store and Apple Recording) I could see the dispute in a different light, but a social giant like Digg and a Lucasfilm game from the mid-90’s are polar opposites.