• Riskable@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      It’s not a registered trademark… It’s a Florida Corporation which gets an automatic trademark of sorts based on case law. It’s complicated but if someone owns Foo Software and then makes a sale across state lines using that “mark” (in this case, “Foo” in the context of software) they get an automatic trademark on that name related to that good (software).

      Planet Money did a whole podcast about it related to their Micro Face comic (someone sold beverages across state lines under the name, “Micro Face”). It’s an excellent podcast. I highly recommend it (super interesting and funny).

      But you know what? Fuck it: You can use the name, “Liftoff”. Liftoff Software has been dead for several years now. Even though they sold stuff under that name across state lines many times (even internationally) that corporation is not coming back. So don’t worry about it 👍