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back to article Groupon flees from army of angry GNOMES: Trademark bid for 'Gnome' tab scrapped

Groupon has given up its pursuit of the trademark "Gnome", intended for its sales register tablet, after being chased off by the open-source GNOME project. The upstart voucher flinger told The Register that it was no longer looking to trademark "Gnome" in the wake of outrage from folks at the Linux desktop software foundation …

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  1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Trollface

    Change of plan!

    So will they now try the Trojan Rabbit manoeuver?

    0 0 Reply
    1. davidp231
      Reply Icon

      Re: Change of plan!

      Or a "giant wooden badger"...

      1 0 Reply
  2. channel extended

    Web search?

    How did they not do a simple web search for the name? Maybe marketing can't use the web?

    8 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Marketing did use the web!

      It's probably the first time in months most of the world was reminded that GroupOn exists - and it didn't cost them a thing! [*] Now they can boast of increasing their reach into the prized geek demographic by up to one billion per-cent.

      [*] our respect?? that horse is long gone! self-respect?? c'mon, we're talking about a Marketing Dept!

      14 0 Reply
    2. JEDIDIAH
      Reply Icon
      Linux

      Re: Web search?

      They probably thought that "they could get away with it" and that these filthy hippies wouldn't be able to lob litigation grenades in their general direction.

      1 0 Reply
  3. Jan 0 Silver badge

    "Sales register tablet"

    Surely it's not just Gnome. Don't "ElReg" and "The Tablet" both have a bone to pick with Groupon now?

    GroupOff!

    0 0 Reply
  4. RedneckMother
    Coat

    next plan:

    Trademark SystemD (ducks!).

    7 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: next plan:

      Please do

      2 0 Reply
  5. Mage Silver badge

    You need random names like XKCD now

    Except that's gone.

    All the nice fruit, plants and cute animals are gone already. As well as several attempts at letters of the alphabet.

    Though a lot of them are out of business (Tangerine, Tulip, Apricot). Cherry still make switches I think.

    Somehow too a Troll's Slab doesn't sound as nice as a Gnome's Tablet. (But don't tell the Trolltech founders I said that)

    "Elven Crystal"?

    Actually "Gnome" is pretty daft name for a Desktop. If it was me in charge I'd licence them the name at so much upfront and then 0.5% per tablet sale list price. Then get a better name for the Desktop. (Frames was gone even before Windows).

    0 1 Reply
    1. tony2heads
      Reply Icon

      Re: You need random names like XKCD now

      Lots of other fruits left.

      I suggest Durian - as it stinks so much; to quote wikipedia:

      "The smell evokes reactions from deep appreciation to intense disgust, and has been described variously as rotten onions, turpentine, and raw sewage"

      6 0 Reply
      1. Cipher
        Reply Icon
        Coat

        Re: You need random names like XKCD now

        " I suggest Durian - as it stinks so much; to quote wikipedia"

        The article is about Gnome, not systemd, please stay on topic.

        Oh wait...

        1 0 Reply
      2. Alan Brown Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: You need random names like XKCD now

        Raw sewage is pretty close - particularly if it's the kind of raw sewage that's been festering for a couple of days.

        When I lived in east asia the things were generally banned from public transport.

        0 0 Reply
    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: You need random names like XKCD now

      Isn't slab a sort of Troll catnip...

      2 0 Reply
    3. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: You need random names like XKCD now

      (G)NU (N)etwork (O)bject (M)odel (E)nvironment.

      Though after many years I just switched to kde, over systemd hard requirements in gnome3, so dilgaf now.

      0 0 Reply
  6. Robin Bradshaw

    Its probably for the best, if they had called it Gnome they would have been crushed by misdirected support calls.

    1 0 Reply
  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Gnome has been registered since 2006

    US Registration Number 3142483. Methinks the Groupon trademark agent would have a wee bit of trouble distinguishing field of use.

    0 0 Reply

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