Frsnkly, I'm sick of companies -- software companies in particular -- trying to own plain English words. I was sick of it when Microsoft registered "Windows" as a trademark (they actually had the trademark challenged and lost it in Australia -- as a common use term in computing), and "Word" and "Excel" and "Access" and "Money" and on and on. If Microsoft wants to sell "Microsoft Word" then good luck, but I should be able to sell "BillyBob Word" or whatever. (Yes, I guess this means I kind of don't like "Apple" as a registered trademark either. I have no problem with the Apple logo (now they've bought it from the Beatles) or "Apple Inc." or "Apple Computer".)
Imagine if Boeing owned the trademark "Airplane" or if Southwest owned "Ticket" (but only in the domain of air travel...). People would think that was ridiculous.
MiSoft is angry because they tried to squat on the name "paper" and failed and now "paper" is "owned" by someone else. The sensible option is to allow anyone to call their app "paper" (but underneath it's com.foo.paper or com.bar.paper) and users will be annoyed if your name or icon are utterly indistinct. OTOH if you somehow actually own the name Papr or whatever then good luck to you.
Incidentally, "Paper" by 53 is the most annoying iPad application I use. It works well -- I like it a lot -- but its tools are all in-app purchases, and if you accidentally touch a tool you don't own (because they're all there, dimmed out) you get an ad for the tool. After I first got the app I decided I liked it enough to pay for "all" the tools. Then they added a new (expensive) tool I didn't want. So I have this annoying tool I can't remove and don't want to pay for out of principle, but every time I touch it, the frickin' ad appears.
Imagine if Boeing owned the trademark "Airplane" or if Southwest owned "Ticket" (but only in the domain of air travel...). People would think that was ridiculous.
MiSoft is angry because they tried to squat on the name "paper" and failed and now "paper" is "owned" by someone else. The sensible option is to allow anyone to call their app "paper" (but underneath it's com.foo.paper or com.bar.paper) and users will be annoyed if your name or icon are utterly indistinct. OTOH if you somehow actually own the name Papr or whatever then good luck to you.
Incidentally, "Paper" by 53 is the most annoying iPad application I use. It works well -- I like it a lot -- but its tools are all in-app purchases, and if you accidentally touch a tool you don't own (because they're all there, dimmed out) you get an ad for the tool. After I first got the app I decided I liked it enough to pay for "all" the tools. Then they added a new (expensive) tool I didn't want. So I have this annoying tool I can't remove and don't want to pay for out of principle, but every time I touch it, the frickin' ad appears.