Tangential but I used Threads at a previous company and really liked it. I don't know how anyone could get a company that's already built around Slack to switch, but if you are starting fresh I think Threads offered a much nicer experience for async comms and especially for long discussions of consequence. Highly recommend giving it a shot!
$10/user/mo sounds expensive. And the free option looks so tiny it's a non starter.
I think both Slack and Threads should be a little more generous with their free packages. Maybe like 5 users and unlimited history or self hosted but no support.
As an lawyer with a bit of an intellectual property background, this seems like such an obvious trademark infringement suit that I'm virtually positive Meta paid Threads a decent sum to use the name while they sign an NDA.
I’ve seen Microsoft and similar companies get their ass whupped for this.
It’s really an open and shut case, somebody in another thread just pointed out that “threads.com” really has a registered trademark, they might not even need that given they have a history of using the name.
FB can pay or change the name if they want to get out of the doghouse.
I found roughly 30 registrations for “Threads” (mostly expired) and it didn’t seem that any of them are Facebook or threads.com; threads.com seems to have a very similar service to Facebook Threads, somebody who looked at the screenshots might confuse one for the other.
The fact of Threads.com already using the name “Threads” in the market might give them a case against Facebook, it would possibly pay handsomely for them to talk to an IP lawyer to see if they have any rights in this case. Many big companies have been careless about naming things, remember how Microsoft initially called “OneDrive” “SkyDrive”? They just didn’t do their due diligence and it wasn’t the first time for the,.
The services this registration covers (in Class 42) are: "Platform as a service (PAAS) featuring computer software platforms for use in project management and collaboration for the technology and media industries that allows organizations and users to create, upload, share, discuss, store, and search content meant for users of the platform; none of the foregoing specifically targeting decision support among healthcare professionals and facilities"
You shouldn't be able to get a trademark on "Threads," any more than you should be able to get a trademark on "Doors" if you owned a company that sold doors called Doors. "Doors.com," fine; "Doors.net," fine, "The Great ...doors," fine. Facebook will protect Threads with trademarked logos and color schemes, not by pretending that they own the concept of threads.
Also, if you want to name your car company "Threads" or even your clothing company "Threads," fine. If you want to name your thread company Threads, you can't have a trademarked word.
Why not? You won't be able to trademark "doors" if you sell doors. But if you make it, day the name of your band, you can. It doesn't stop people from using the word doors in relation to well doors, or a door company. But it does stop someone else for using it for another band name.
Basically you can't trademark a common word in a common usage, but you can trademark it for an uncommon usage. Now whether you should or not is a different story. Common words don't help SEO much.
I worked at a place for six months where I worked on an impossible number of projects that were hosted on Windows particularly including the really strange such as hosted on MS Access. (Something that could work pretty well or pretty poorly depending on how it was configured.)
See https://ip.com/ I don't know if it has a public demo anymore.
The search engine used a neural network autoencoder for "more like this" queries and did a great job if you wrote a paragraph describing your invention and want to find related inventions, both in patent and non-patent literature. If it hasn't been made obsolete by Sentence BERT, however, it soon will be.
It covers (in Class 42): "Platform as a service (PAAS) featuring computer software platforms for use in project management and collaboration for the technology and media industries that allows organizations and users to create, upload, share, discuss, store, and search content meant for users of the platform; none of the foregoing specifically targeting decision support among healthcare professionals and facilities"
Meta had a product previously called Threads, there's lots of companies called Apple. They are billed as a slack replacement and not a twitter replacement. I'm not seeing the issue.
Maybe I’m wrong but I thought I heard Facebook Threads doesn’t support hashtags (one of those things that matters if they connect to the fedi because I just found out hashtags are the royal road to visibility there…)
What they're saying is, they don't see a legal issue. They do understand the names are the same, and are noting that commonplace words often have this issue.
More of an opportunity than an issue. Now they can sell the company to Meta for the domain name instead of simply folding when their Slack replacement fails.
Sure, those are both great outcomes for Threads.com. It's hard to see this being a problem rather than an opportunity for them. One wonders if they already do have such a name licensing agreement and just couldn't come to an agreement on buying the domain itself.
Helping people leave your App isn't the the top of most product manager's goals; even without the managment nightmare.
Utilising inherent network effects to aid discovery within your app is the top of most product manager's goals.
Not allowing URLs is neglecting one of the fundamental pieces of the World Wide Web, no matter what product manager's goal is to line is swimming pool with gold.
Apple records (Apple corp) had an issue back in the early apple computer days. Then when Apple released its itunes store, Apple records really had an issue, but there was some litigation and they settled..
"The settlement includes terms that are confidential, although newspaper accounts at the time stated that Apple Computer was buying out Apple Corps' trademark rights for a total of $500 million."
Perhaps Meta's attorneys will do the 'nice' thing and pay to license the name from them. Apple paid Cisco millions for the right to use the name iOS/iPhone, and Cisco retained the right to continue to use the trademark.
The services the registration covers (in Class 42) are: "Platform as a service (PAAS) featuring computer software platforms for use in project management and collaboration for the technology and media industries that allows organizations and users to create, upload, share, discuss, store, and search content meant for users of the platform; none of the foregoing specifically targeting decision support among healthcare professionals and facilities"
IANYL, but the registration by Threads for THREADS is in Class 42: "Platform as a service (PAAS) featuring computer software platforms for use in project management and collaboration for the technology and media industries that allows organizations and users to create, upload, share, discuss, store, and search content meant for users of the platform; none of the foregoing specifically targeting decision support among healthcare professionals and facilities"
I don't see how this is any different than a product named "Websites" or "Blogs" or "Comments". It's like a genericized trademark, except there was no trademark to begin with.
There should be no trademark protection for companies which use existing words as their name, especially if the word describes their business. "Slack" as a software name is borderline; "Slacks" as a name of a clothing company is crazy.
This is being heavily downvoted but it raises a very valid point. Again IANAL but in my vague recollection from dealing with this years ago, if "thread" is such a commonplace word in describing message boards, then it is not protected in the same way that, say, "Twitter" is. It would be like trying to argue only my bakery can use the word "cake"
Am I the only one who gets an uncanny feeling visiting this site? If someone told me this was software satire I would believe them.
This cyberpunk-ish theme with juvenile sprite sprinkled over it (e.g. the little AI guy floating under the video and the figures under "What people are saying").
At the beginning of the video I get these '90s infomercial; "The world moves fast / information super highway" vibes. The background music seems ironic considering the visual content.
I guess it is just trying to be retro but the "I want to be post iOS 5 Apple" top bar throws me off. Sorry this is not constructive but I just must know if I'm the only one feeling this.
In any case, I don't mind Slack but I'd give this a try if they allowed more than 500 messages in the free tier. At least Slack gives you the 90 day history.
I couldn't find a trademark with only the word "threads" [1]. There's "U Threads" [2] for example, but it has a disclaimer: "NO CLAIM IS MADE TO THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHT TO USE "THREADS" APART FROM THE MARK AS SHOWN".
Funny enough that you are having this conversation. I was about to launch a NFT project called threads.nft which basically just had a bunch of pixel thread cartoons but no trademarked meta content. I was close to launch and then I stopped in my tracks realizing that Meta would probably kick in my door just for the overlap in name.
Nevermind how nonsensical this nft stuff seems to you, it isn't really relevant. I thought my anecdote might add to the discussion.
What do you think? Would I have lawyers at my door if I launched this (what can be best explained as) "art" project?
Facebook was willing to pay $9million for fb.com back in 2010. If this threads experiment goes well, I'm sure Zuck will make them an offer they can't refuse.
Meta launched a twitter clone called Threads. An existing chat application (in the Slack vein) is called Threads. Meta’s Threads might infringe on the other Threads’ trademark in the US.
If I have gathered correctly, it's that Meta (Facebook's parent co) has launched a new product called "Threads", but there is already a company called "Threads" which OP linked with his or her post.
So the question is, how can Facebook launch without owning the trademark, which it is surely violating.
They have successfully submarined us into looking at the product page on Threads.com as a Slack alternative, while opining on whether this might be a trademark dispute around Meta's new thing with the same name.
