AMD targeted by Arctic over Fusion brand
Arctic is looking to block sales of AMD Fusion products, claiming trademark infringement of its own Fusion-branded PSUs.
First spotted by the guys over at the German tech site Heise, Arctic's lawsuit claims that AMD is infringing on its trademark rights by using the word 'Fusion,' despite the latter not actually using the term in any direct product naming conventions.
According to Arctic, it was first to use the name 'Fusion' in relation to computing products, using the term as the name of a range of power supply products since 2006. While the company had initially approached AMD's German branch in an attempt to find an amicable solution - which is to say, in an attempt to get the company to hand over some cash in licensing fees - talks broke down, with AMD seeking legal representation.
While the company has since agreed to settle with Arctic over the matter - and has, as previously mentioned, dropped the word 'Fusion' in favour of 'Heterogeneous Systems Architecture' - Arctic claims that the licensing fees offered by AMD don't even cover the legal costs it has incurred in bringing the matter to the company's attention.
As a result, Arctic is bringing out the big guns: in a letter sent to eighteen major distributors across Germany, France and Austria, Arctic is calling for the immediate cessation of sales of all AMD APU-based products until the company agrees to pay a decent wedge in licensing money.
Covering desktops, laptops and motherboards, Arctic's letter names pretty much the entire AMD Fusion - sorry, AMD HSA - product line: all the A4, A6 and A8 processors and the C- and E-series low-power chips are included, along with the A50M, A60M, A70M, A55T, A68M, A45, A55, A75, A55e and A85x motherboard chipsets.
Arctic, for its part, claims it is merely trying to protect its brand from dilution through AMD's efforts. With AMD voluntarily ditching the Fusion branding, however, it's hard to see Arctic's side of the argument.
AMD has yet to comment on the case.
Are you on Arctic's side, or just pleased to finally find a real reason for AMD's dropping of the Fusion brand? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
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Discuss in the forums ReplyIf Arctic were making CPUs, then I could possibly understand it.
People are starving, others do not have home or water to drink, children got killed ... and they are fighting for a name ? I'm getting sick of all those useless business wars (Apple/Samsung, AMD/Arctic, etc..).
EDIT : Doesn't ANtec have an HTPC case named Fusion ? Hasn't VMware got a product named Fusion ? Isn't Ford selling a car named Fusion ? etc, etc, etc ...
There's already a LOT of product name fusion out here : Ford Fusion, VMware Fusion, Antec Fusion, etc..... They should care about important things or maybe this is an easy way to make money
I mean what's next are they going to take Gillette to court over the fact they use the word Fusion in there naming of a product they sell.
I am all for people getting what they deserve but sometimes it just goes to far and is to petty.
Right mate :).If they have money to waste in childish law suites, they could give it to the red cross, build schools or hospital with it. Damn sharks ! (sorry but that's making me sick, sometimes I'm ashamed to be a human being)
Especially since it's Gillette Fusion Power.
It will be in the news next weel lol
Artic Cooling sueing Gillette over the name of a product's.
I just wish that when these big companies do this type of thing that the judge or who ever say's well as you don't exactly need the money, you are to give 50% of the awarded fund's to a charity.
I mean Help For Heroes need's all the money they can get.
Shouldn't the lawyers have been consulted before the Fusion brand launch? I'm sure there are brand protection lawyers out there who sniff these things out.
I am sure they already give a lot of money to charity for tax breaks.
Sent from my HTC Sensation XE with Beats Audio Z715e using Tapatalk
You would have thought that they would have looked in to it before releasing it wouldn't you?
Or is that just us regular folk thinking reasonably unlike these people who seem to think let's see if we can get away with it or not.
My thoughts exactly. The Antec didn't immediately spring to mind, but I used to have one (fine case too!). Maybe AMD should instead go talk to them about pursuing legislation to cover for context in naming being wholly relevant. I can't imagine a scenario where someone wanting to buy a PSU might mistake it for a CPU product. Or a Car. Or a Leisure management company. Or a nuclear bomb. Or...ironically enough, a branding company. If it were a direct & verbatim product identifier they might have some sort of case & despite the fact that AMD themselves have been questionably guilty of rather more targetted copyright theft, I'm on their side with this one.
But now of course AMD run the risk of being sued by the Financial Services Authority......god forbid anyone mail orders a new FSA processor & gets sent a PPI claim form instead! :(
Oops, my bad- HSA, not FSA, Humane Slaughter Association...order a CPU and get bits of dead animal....
Excellent paraphrasing ;)
This HSA thing makes a little more sense now, but surely this just opens up AMD to a claim from an annoyingly memorable health insurance company:
http://tvs-worst-adverts.co.uk/hsa-hey-just-say/
I work in Fusion Research, fusion is a scientific word from Latin which is near 500 years old, no one should lay claim to a word, as a concept totally different, but as AMD make a system they called fusion, they should be able to use it.
TBH there are way too many companies seeking damages from others on the basis that the name they use is theirs alone, not the technology they invent.
From now on, I will patent ANY word I feel like, then when its been used for a few years I'll cash in on it well if they can, why can't I?
Ask 3 lawyers for their opinion and you get at least 4 different answers.
In other words:
If common words like Windows, Fusion, Apple and so on can be protected or not is debatable, at least according to some Lawyers.
What given right has Arctic to stop sales of a product which doesn't belong to them and won't carry the Fusion name. I would like to see Physics tell Arctic to shove it because they were the ones to study and create fusions in lab. Or the Earth itself, the fusion of rock into lava! Ha!
Think you'll find that the Sun has been doing this for many years before anyone else, so maybe the Sun should be suing everyone?
I know WTF is the world coming to, truly pathetic stuff.
Is nit picking over simple names the sign of tech not evolving much or just 1 company failing to produce awesome products everyone wants who it's relevant to so they go this way to make up for lost cash? or in Apples case just straight up greedy gits.
It must be hard for new awesome innovative people with awesome ideas & know how to realise the ideas & then get shot down by a lame company over a stupid word, wow how crap is that & it will surely hold back innovations because of people with mediocre ideas but scheming minds.
I'm not sure what the rules are for large corporations, but it's almost certain that they used their own legal team for the advice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion
Exactly .
There are no fusion power companies at present, its still at the R&D stage.
(Fusion is different to Fission)
This is your third attempt to throw out the old "No smoke without fire" troll against AMD in this thread alone. Can you give the AMD bashing a rest for a few days?
The US Navy had words with them.