IMAX Threatens Open Source 3D Engine With Bizarre Reasoning

from the say-what-now dept

Wed, Mar 17th 2010 11:30am — Mike Masnick

Proffer alerts us to the bizarre story of how IMAX (last seen suing competitors and misleading people about what an IMAX film really is) is now threatening the folks behind the Sandy3D open source 3D flash engine. Apparently, IMAX has some sort of 3D drawing system called SANDDE. So, maybe, if you squint, you could see how IMAX might be complaining about a trademark issue. But the letter from IMAX is quite odd. It doesn't mention trademark at all. Instead, it mentions a French patent.

This is quite odd, considering that there's clearly no patent issue here (beyond the fact that Sandy3D isn't in France and the products are entirely different). So why isn't IMAX talking trademark? Well, perhaps because IMAX's trademark on SANDDE was considered abandoned as of March 8, 2000. Yes, more than ten years ago. There's also the fact that this open source project is not a commercial endeavor at all, meaning that IMAX might have a lot of trouble proving "use in commerce" even if it actually had a trademark. Perhaps IMAX could get away with claiming a common law trademark, but even then, its ability to do anything to Sandy3D would be quite limited, and it's difficult to see anyone finding a likelihood of confusion existing between the two.

In the end, it looks like some IMAX lawyers decided to just threaten these open source developers, hoping that by spewing some totally unrelated info about a patent, it might scare the developers into changing the name on a product, even though the patent has nothing at all to do with the issue, and the company has no registered trademark on the name in question.

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Filed Under: 3d, imax, patents, threats, trademarks
Companies: imax

20 Comments

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Rikuo (profile), 17 Mar 2010 @ 11:50am

its the lawyers
simple really, the lawyers need to keep themselves busy so they can justify their salaries. Since they couldn't find anything that actually made sense, they just went on a bender and started this.
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- Anonymous Coward, 17 Mar 2010 @ 12:51pm
  
  Re: its the lawyers
  Well then, the solution is simple as well. Just make it so that any time a lawsuit is filed, the lawyers must state, under penalty of perjury, that they are filing in good conscience. Then, when these ridiculous lawsuits come up that any unbiased lawyer with a brain would see was winnable if it ever came to trial, enforce that penalty. You end up with a bunch of overly-litigious lawyers in disbarred and behind bars. Problem solved, right?
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  - Anonymous Coward, 17 Mar 2010 @ 12:52pm
    
    Re: Re: its the lawyers
    Same AC here. winnable->unwinnable. Stupid lack of proofreading :(
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- Anonymous Coward, 17 Mar 2010 @ 12:54pm
  
  Re: its the lawyers
  Sadly this is probabbly the most logical reason for what's happening.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Mar 2010 @ 12:13pm

There needs to be a quota for law students. Only x amount (hopefully a low number) of lawyers can be produced. This is basically how you control animal populations, )though animal control also includes hunting...).
Anyway, with less lawyers, there'll be more work for each lawyer, and thus less need to "create work" . That would stop stuff like this from ever happening.
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- Ima Fish (profile), 17 Mar 2010 @ 12:37pm
  
  Re:
  That's the purpose of state bar associations, unfortunately they have not been doing their jobs as of late.
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- :Lobo Santo (profile), 17 Mar 2010 @ 12:37pm
  
  Re:
  Ya know, it would be even more effective if a lawyer hunting season were implemented...
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  - Atkray (profile), 17 Mar 2010 @ 1:49pm
    
    Re: Re:
    I'm in.
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- Ryan, 17 Mar 2010 @ 12:42pm
  
  Re:
  Well, limiting supply could also simply drive up the price of lawyers(and thus create even larger incentives for lawyers to find more reasons for lawsuits). This is another reason for high health care costs, in that we have licensing requirements for most care and then turn around and allow colleges to set low limits for new medical students(which then drives up tuition prices) creating a shortage of available providers.
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NAMELESS.ONE, 17 Mar 2010 @ 12:17pm

and the needle and the damage done
a little bit in hollwood ones OHHHHH ohhh the damage is now done.

YUP IMAX retards have now begun the boycott 3d movement to now go viral EVERYWHERE
and ill be losses form this act of threat are far more then any actual damages some open source 3d engine can do, whats next ITS LINUX's FAULT
OH WAIT thats SCO's area
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NAMELESS.ONE, 17 Mar 2010 @ 12:19pm

correction
P.S. i wrote at 12 years of age a sentence parser for the vic 20 why cant spell checker do somehting similar so i make even fewer mistakes....

be = BET
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- taoareyou (profile), 17 Mar 2010 @ 12:58pm
  
  Re: correction
  You wrote a sentence parser in only 3583 bytes of RAM? Or did you have the 16K Expansion cartridge?
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  - Anonymous Coward, 17 Mar 2010 @ 2:08pm
    
    Re: Re: correction
    It's easy to fit a parser in RAM. It is the dictionary that kills you.
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    - DJ, 17 Mar 2010 @ 3:28pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: correction
      Sorry, I guess correct sentence structure/grammar/ENGLISH(!!!!!!) isn't being taught in schools anymore, because I have no freaking clue what he said. Just to be clear, I don't mean that I didn't understand the terms, I mean that it looks as though he randomly grabbed words from somewhere and threw them together.
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- Any Mouse, 17 Mar 2010 @ 9:57pm
  
  Re: correction
  Since you can't seem to parse your own sentences, or make any sort of sense at all, I'm going to have to call bullshit on this one.
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Spaceman Spiff (profile), 17 Mar 2010 @ 12:25pm

Lawyers, shmawyers
I hope the SFLC gets involved with this, and smacks down IMAX about this. Now if I can just get my lawyer to pay his bill for fixing his network... :-)
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ConceptJunkie (profile), 17 Mar 2010 @ 12:59pm

The default strategy of lawyers...
These days, it seems that the default strategy of too many lawyers is to make an endless series of empty threats in the hopes of scaring some poor victim into capitulating. Of course, when large companies do this, they can simply win by virtue of being able to throw more money than a small victim, denying the victim's ability to defend himself. A small victim will have to destroy itself financially to fight back, and then may still not win because you can find a judge to make just about any ruling you could want if you shop around.
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Haywood (profile), 17 Mar 2010 @ 1:06pm

Dammit I like IMAX
I don't want to boycott them, but if they behave like assholes, then I'd be required to do so, by my higher self.
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DJ, 17 Mar 2010 @ 3:32pm

Monster effect
Didn't monster cable try this tactic like 8 billion times?
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NAMELESS.ONE, 17 Mar 2010 @ 5:15pm

sentance parser
taoareyo

i used the tape recorder as a database and it would go forward and back looking for proper parts of sentances in a zork like game i created

the vic 20 despite is low mem of 3.5 K had oddles of ability to load stuff off the cassette recorder
and later yes when i got a 16 K ram expander i thought OMG how can i ever use this much memory

thats when i added some graphics to said games

basically it would search for patterns of the at first a basic sentence

walk over there
go to house

sooner later longer and more exhaustive sentences.

I'll say also that you could use a serial cable later on and hook as many vics to each other and use the resources

amazing what ya learn on BBS boards with a .3Kbytes modem
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