"Facebook Paper" is an alternative interface to Facebook.
"Paper by FiftyThree" is a drawing application.
Other than that they are both software, there's little room for confusion. 53 can get upset and write a blog post about it, but there is no substantive damage done. They'll probably sell more of their own product because of this.
That said, I don't think 53 can claim any exclusive rights to the name, and I'm happy to see they haven't - they have just asked with exquisite politeness.
If I took ten people off the street, in San Francisco itself, and asked them who made an iPhone app called "Paper" a majority would probably already tell me Facebook. Perhaps one of them would know of 53, and probably not by name. Being in the mobile software community, we know of a lot of "successful mobile apps" that are not household names. I like and use 53's Paper, but 53 is not Exxon, GE, or Facebook. My friends and family have almost certainly never heard of it. A hundred million unverified global downloads does not equal a hundred million people who remember what your poorly branded, generically named app is called. I usually think of it as "that coffee stain icon with a generic name". Honestly, 53 might do better renaming it "53". Or "Studio 53" if they wanted to skim off of another brand that probably won't fight back.
Paper by FiftyThree is a good product, but a poor choice of name, and I still can't figure out why their app icon says "53" instead of "Paper".
That said, I don't think 53 can claim any exclusive rights to the name, and I'm happy to see they haven't - they have just asked with exquisite politeness.
No. 53 needs to claim exclusivity, claim that there is no possibility of confusion, or live with the reality that if people start calling Facebook Paper just "Paper", that Facebook will legally be able to prevent 53 from using the term. With trademarks it doesn't matter who has been using it longer, only who successfully enforces it.
I don't know where you're getting this idea from, every article I've seen has had a fine time just referring to the app as 'Paper'. All the marketing material is clearly just referring to this as 'Paper', I strongly strongly doubt Facebook want's anyone to refer to the app as 'Facebook Paper'. And I certainly don't think it's too generic, I saw the original 'Paper' app being referred to as 'Paper' just fine before Facebook came out with an identically named app.
Paper (53) is a drawing app, Paper (FB) is a news/FB wall magazine. Completely different markets. They should be able to co-exist.
If it continues it might be funny for 53 to release Paper Facebook.
Also, it is very unlikely that Facebook is attempting to benefit from 53's brand. Facebook wanted to call their product something descriptive, and the names collided. Compare this to any name involving "Facebook", which likely is attempting to benefit. Outside of a directly competing service, it's unlikely that the name of a product would include the word "Facebook". This makes "Facebook" less generic and more enforceable than "Paper".
And I am going to name it SnapYouTwitFace.
Perhaps you should try bringing to market a product called "Coca-Cola by Ynniv" and you can find out for yourself how this really works.
Should we expect an upcoming blog post from 53 complaining that Crayola has released a new product entitled "Pencil"?
If you want to protect your name, use a protectable name. If you're going to use an entirely generic name then deal with it... wait hang on... Dunder Mifflin just called... they want their name back too.
Cool company, great products, daft blog post.
Look at all the publicity, they are on Reddit, news sites, twitter, HN... I've never heard of them until today, and I imagine I'm, not alone.
53 was granted a US Trademark on the phrase 'Paper by FiftyThree' on December 2013 for trademark categories 21 23 26 36 38 and it appears international category 9 with a first-used-in-commerce claim of March 2013.
53 are obligated to enforce their mark in those categories otherwise they risk losing it. This is the same reason Facebook goes after anything with 'face or book' that even vaguely seems similar. If they don't they risk losing the Facebook mark.
The law sides with the trademark holder as long as they enforce the mark.
As many people have mentioned, 'Paper' is generic and 53 didn't get the word 'Paper' by itself. It was granted the mark 'Paper by FiftyThree'. Since Facebook's app isn't called 'Paper by Facebook' this leaves some wiggle room if FB wants to challenge the claim if it heads to court. Facebook has deep pockets and good lawyers, so perhaps they've already calculated the risk and is willing to fight in court. 53 may not be able to afford that fight (cash or distraction wise).
TL;DR: 53 is obligated to enforce their Trademark and the letter to Facebook is a manifestation of that obligation. Unfortunately their mark isn't just on the word 'paper' so it will be interesting to see if this fades away or the parties head to court.
But the open letter is not. A simple C&D would have protected them; publishing it is purely about marketing.
This is a big social faux paus on Facebook's part - at least among the developer community - but I really don't see either company changing their Paper's name. I imagine it'll go similarly to Google's Go name collision[1].
How should the little guy in these situations be legally protected? On one hand it's clear that "candy" shouldn't be trademarked, but "paper" is just as generic a term. Maybe the lesson here is not to name your product generic nouns and avoid the trouble all together.
Did it not turn out to be a legal issue because there was ultimately little commercial interest behind the Go![1] language?
Apple Computer had to pay Apple Corps, even though it seemed like the computer industry had little to do with the music industry at the time[2], so it is confusing how the conflict can be ignored until it goes away.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go!_%28programming_language%29
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v._Apple_Computer
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/25/business/la-fi-0826-...
521 - paper
1991 - match
2723 - apple
2777 - square
2921 - target
Source (could probably use something more legitimate): http://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/common-words-5000.htm
Yep , And to add more salt to wounds, I hate such diplomatic "Oh Shit! Did you guys existed too ? We just did not know answers".
(A) that the mark PAPER is protectable for what 53 sells -- and I think that's highly likely; PAPER in this context strikes me as a "suggestive" and therefore protectable mark [1]; and
(B) that 53 was the first user of the mark; and
(C) that there's a "likelihood of confusion" about the origin, sponsorship, or endorsement of the companies' products or services -- this entails looking at seven or eight factual questions, namely the "strength" of the mark; the proximity of the goods; the similarity of the marks in appearance and/or sound; any evidence of actual confusion; similarity in marketing channels used; the type of goods and the degree of care likely to be exercised by the purchaser the junior user's intent in selecting the mark; and the likelihood of expansion of the respective product lines [2].
In that situation, as the junior user, Facebook would (or should) be liable for infringement.
Another point: 53 can be damaged by "reverse confusion," namely people thinking that 53 is the one that's ripping off Facebook [3].
[1] http://tmep.uspto.gov/RDMS/detail/manual/TMEP/Oct2012/TMEP-1...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_infringement
[3] http://definitions.uslegal.com/r/reverse-confusion-trademark...
This line tells the whole story. This isn't just the case of a large company perhaps not noticing another product in the digital space with the same name. This is very deliberate, and the CEO comes across as flabbergasted with Facebook's decision.
There are TWO billion-dollar storage companies with Box in the name. Now that's confusing.
I did work on a project once where most of the contributors referred to Google Drive as their dropbox, as well.
"So we're building this great new experience, and we want to call it Paper..."
"Isn't there already an incredibly popular mobile application called Paper?"
"So?"
Some variant of this conversation must have happened, right? It's not like nobody at Facebook has heard of 53 - how did this name ever get out the door?
It seems like most of us here on HN think of 53's Paper when we think of 'app called Paper' - perhaps this isn't the case in the overall consumer market (but then again, Paper - 53's, that is - was once featured prominently on Apple.com - not just the app store, but the main website) - but to me at least, it feels like Facebook is using a name which is 'already taken'.
It seems Facebook simply doesn't care. FiftyThree's complaint will blow over in a few days.
However, FiftyThree is signing up plenty of new users from the story. They're probably genuinely upset but this won't be their death and it might even be a good thing. I'd never heard of Paper beforehand.
Choosing an already in use word for any new publicly accessible thing complicates the global namespace a little more than it already is, but if it is the name you really wish to give it, sometimes a little distributed parsing overhead is better than the alternatives - trademarking "paper" or calling your product "Payper" instead.
FB being the first $1 trillion company seems inevitable. FB is the borg of all borgs.
You can't mention or search for them without barfing out the company name, and sometimes a specific property alongside to be unambiguous about your meaning. It makes finding discussions and blog posts harder because people don't have a common language for these poorly-named things.
It just seems like these companies are shooting themselves in the foot. Is natural word-of-mouth growth no longer a concern?
[1]: http://reactjs.com/
Which app would you download from the appstore ?
I seriously doubt that 53 was the first company that used Paper in the name.
This seems much more like manufactured controversy for free press than anything else.
Anyhow, what's the name of that FB Android app that turns your phone's desktop into a FB desktop? Or was it iOS app? What exactly was it anyway? FB OS?
Don't worry Paper53, PaperFB is probably another fluke, a quick yet clumsy response to Medium's menacing growth, to the wall's irrelevance, to the teens running away....
As far as international usage, that's a different story.
MS can trademark Windows in conjunction with computer interfaces, but not if they decide to make windows that go in houses. That's where the common usage trademark issue arises. Also, if like kerosene the word becomes common usage then the trademark can be revoked.
The law is nuanced, there is no blanket ban on trademarking words in common usage.
Facebook has already "gone live" with the Paper name—I think it's too late to change it. Whether it's malicious (are they "building their story" off FiftyThree's work?) or not ("Oops") is almost irrelevant here.
It seems to me that both FB and 53 applied the same degree of thought.
IMHO, I find it absurd that private companies want to make common words their own. Couldn't the "degree of thought" 53 put into their naming process led them to think that "paper" was an extremely generic word and this conflict was bound to happen?
Either Facebook released this as a project their engineers did to test out interfaces or they are collecting data from this app about what is shared and what content is viewed to improve their own feed algorithms.
Paper by FiftyThree (FiftyThree, Inc.)
Paper - stories from Facebook (Facebook, Inc.)
Another distinction to keep in mind is FiftyThree's Paper is iPad only and Facebook's is iPhone only (although it will install on iPad).
Yes it may cause confusion, but they should have used unique names for their products if they wanted the differentiation.
That should do it ;)
Lesson to self, avoid generic names.
I really like 53's Paper app, but I wouldn't like it any less if it were called Doodlepad, DrawPaper etc.