from the garfield-v.-odie dept
There’s an old joke that dog and cat owners may be familiar with that goes something like this. What is the difference between dogs and cats? With a dog, you give it a comfortable place to live, give it lots of love and attention, feed it food and water, and it therefore assumes you must be God. With a cat, you give it a comfortable place to live, give it lots of love and attention, feed it food and water, and it therefore assumes it must be God. If there’s any point to that joke at all, it’s that cats and dogs are very different creatures, with different reputations, and are often seen as diametrically opposing forces as a cliche.
But if you’re Sony, dogs and cats are so similar that they can create trademark confusion, apparently. In the stated effort to protect its trademarks for one of its gaming studios, Naughty Dog, Sony has opposed the trademark application for a tiny foreign mobile game studio with two App Store games. That studio’s name is Naughty Cat.
Sony Interactive Entertainment has filed a Notice of Opposition with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) against the “Naughty Cat” trademark application filed by a company called Naughty Cat Co., Limited.
This Hong Kong-based company has two apps listed on the App Store, both gambling “games” that promise to reward users with real cash. That’s a world away from the likes of The Last of Us and Uncharted, but that hasn’t stopped Sony’s lawyers from baring their teeth and barking angrily at their feline competitor.
In documents reviewed by IGN, Sony’s lawyers argue that the Naughty Cat trademark is “confusingly similar” to the Naughty Dog trademark it owns “in overall commercial impression and connotation.”
Notably, Sony does not have a trademark registered for the word “naughty” that I can find. Therefore, the commonality of that first word in both studio names is not itself directly infringing and can only be cited as contributing to the “overall commercial impression and connotation” of the marks. Instead, Sony seems to rely on the idea that cats and dogs are very similar in the minds of consumers, primarily because they are pets.
“The first, dominant element of the two marks, NAUGHTY, is identical,” Sony said. “The second elements, DOG and CAT, are highly similar in that both refer to house pets and are likely to mislead consumers into believing, mistakenly, that Naughty Cat is affiliated with SIE and/or Naughty Dog or that its goods are licensed or approved by SIE and/or Naughty Dog.”
“Registration of Applicant’s Mark will lead the public to conclude, incorrectly, that Applicant is or has been affiliated or connected with SIE, and/or that Applicant’s goods provided under Applicant’s Mark are or have been authorized, sponsored, endorsed, or licensed by SIE. Issuance of any registration to Applicant for the proposed mark will result in damage to SIE and the public.”
I’m trying to envision an argument against the idea that this is not absurd, but I’m failing. There is no suggestion that the company logos and branding are in any other way similar. The games they make are wildly different. Unless you accept that cats and dogs are similar in the minds of the average consumer, or even morons in various states of hurry, then there is no concern over public confusion.
Here’s what it all looks like in the App Store itself. If you think these listings in this manner are somehow going to bring to mind Sony’s studio for the consumer, please comment as such below so I can yell at you directly.
I suspect instead that this is a simple matter of Sony’s lawyers having entirely too much time on their hands, or seeking to bill for more hours. Or perhaps this is a result of permission culture run amok at this particular company, leading to a posture of draconian protectionism over common sense.
But what I know for certain is this: cats and dogs are not the same, nor are they particularly similar.
Filed Under: likelihood of confusion, naughty, naughty cat, naughty dog, trademark
Companies: sony
