For reference, this is the "contract" which TWiT are arguing. It's a reply from Ev, to an e-mail from Leo. The full contents are at the bottom of the filing[1].<p>>Just got your letter. Don't worry: We're not expanding to audio or video under the Twitter brand. That news story was the result of an over-zealous production company (and extremely sloppy reporting by AP). See our post: <a href="http://blog.twitter.com/2009/05/were-not-making-tv-show.html" rel="nofollow">http://blog.twitter.com/2009/05/were-not-making-tv-show.html</a><p>There's a world of difference between "we are not" vs. "we will not". I am not eating a sandwich right now, but I will most definitely at some point in the future. One would have to be a fool to interpret this as an agreement to never expand into audio/video in all of perpetuity. Furthermore, Twitter's own trademark filing (since 2007) lists "video and audio" as part of the goods and services provided by their brand. Perhaps this argument should have been made in 2007, or when it was published for opposition (which is basically the USPTO's way of saying 'hey, if you are concerned about this trademark infringing your rights... speak up!') in Feb of 2008 (however no such filing was placed according to TTAB's records), not 2018.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/369311229/TWiT-vs-Twitter" rel="nofollow">https://www.scribd.com/document/369311229/TWiT-vs-Twitter</a>
On a related note - it turns out that he's been running the New Screen Savers show for a while now - didn't even know about it. Happy memories watching the original show - I'll have to give this a try.<p>Oh, and some of the old team pop in Kate Botello, Patrick Norton, etc.<p>So there's one benefit to suing Twitter - it gets your name in the media again and all of us old timers can reminisce and catch up on the new series.
Ha. Leo has been talking about this for a long time, bringing it up here and there and various shows. He tends to not get that sympathetic of an ear from his own co-hosts, nor do I have much sympathy. The amount of confusions that arises is probably minimal and is an issue that exists primarily in his own head.<p>I also noticed that in the linked complaint, TWiT still insists on calling their productions "netcasts" instead of podcasts. The market isn't similarly confused over requiring an iPod to listen to podcasts, Leo...
When twitter was new and fresh, I could see this happening... there was a time when more people had heard about TWIT than twitter... but those times have changed, now I'd assume it's many orders of magnitude that people have of twitter and no clue that TWiT exists or has ever existed.
Maybe twitter could just buy them out and make them a part of the core service somehow - everyone can get money and press and benefits.
Guess the lawyers make money either way.
Obvious attempt at a cash grab, as nobody is following Leo Laporte's productions. TWiT uploads on YouTube often have a few hundred views after months, nobody would confuse this tiny little podcaster with Twitter the social network.
does anyone remember the name of the alternate microblogging platform leo laporte was using when this first came up ~ 10 years ago? I remember one episode he just gave in and used twitter.
This is so weird. There has to be more to the story than this. Hardly anyone in TWiT's demographic would confuse it with or prefer it over Twitter.
How is this any different from patent trolling? Nobody confuses TWiT for Twitter, or vice versa. I don't think TWiT should be in a position to make money off Twitter's entry into video, just like some random patent troll shouldn't be able to monetize ludicrous patents