Epic Games sues AR company Nreal for sounding too much like ‘Unreal’ (opens in new tab)

If you hear those said outloud you could totally confuse them

That sarcasm is some of the most subtle I have seen in a while; I applaud you, my good sir ;P.

Forreal

US laws and case precedents says otherwise. If it's in another country, especially in EU, this is frivolous but US IP laws and case precedents are messy as hell. They could lose this case, but the legal bill is worth it as it allows them to allow future lawsuits which misuses trademark homonyms in a genuinely damaging manner to them (like for example a game engine that sounds like "Unreal") since the defendants can't use Nreal's trademark as something they have deliberately left undefended and argue that the "Unreal" has genericised enough that they should use a similar homonym.

Similarly, Epic haven't defended their "Unreal" trademark in China against Nreal because trademark laws there are actually sensible: sure, if someone counterfeit their engine it is unlikely that there would be a case against it (which contrary to first impressions counterfeiters tends to be a small operation and can quickly shut down when there's signs a legal trouble) but if a Chinese company flagrantly displayed the Unreal trademarks against Epic's wishes, they can sue it (and it happened already and prevailed a couple of times there).

They can chose to lose their own trademark?