Meta,
A visit to the Engadget store...
By Peter Rojas 
posted Jul 10th 2006 4:20PM
posted Jul 10th 2006 4:20PM
WATCH - Storefront
WATCH - Denial
Meta,
posted Jul 10th 2006 4:20PM
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
Someone probably already said this. But its different enough that you probably don't have much of a case unless you have a trademark on the word engadget itself. Which I am sure you do. The font, color, and the three arc thing makes it different enough if you have only trademarked the logo. That is my understanding anyway.
A lot of nonsense has been sprouted here. Since I have knowledge in IP and I know a bit about the Malaysian system I'm gonna clarify a bit.
First of all, if you say there are no rights in Malaysia, you obviously know nothing about the law yourself. So please visit the country for yourself, head to the High Court or visit a big law firm and see for yourself IP cases being argued and won. I have.
Secondly, copyright infringement won't really get you much damages here. You could probably win on that (it is a reproduction of the work) but you'll get however much that a court deems the shop received as a consequence of the breach. And you don't need to be in a similar line of work to sue on copyright, and you don't have to be registered. Copyright grants rights to a creator automatically (in most parts of the world, the USA isn't so straight forward).
Your main course of action would perhaps be passing off, which is a common law equivalent to a trade mark rights. Since 'engadget' isn't registered in Malaysia, your recourse is in 'passing off' where you will argue - "Engadget (the shop) is passing themselves off as a spin off of engadget (the website)" and are riding on our reputation." You'll have to prove that people would think both engadgets are connected and there is some sort of a loss of reputation. Its a long shot by any means.
"You really should consult a lawyer on this.
Any non-lawyer attempting to advise engadget.com is practicing law without a license (bad)."
--
About as bad as trying to quote criminal penalties without a clue. Got a source for your definition of practicing law, Mr. Prosecutor?
(I do practice law, with a valid license, in Texas)
Ha ha funny indeed, welcome in Asia I would say. I live myself 10 years in Indonesia now and seen it all, heard it all, bought it all. Actually I was planning to go around taking picts of all logo's, brand names what ever and you would laugh your pants down. In the middle of no where about 6 hours from Bali to the east of Indonesia in small small villages you will find little tiny stores billboarded with brand names like "Kentucky Fried Chicken", "Mc Donalds", "Harrods London" woehaaaa i really laught my pants down. Malaysia is the same, capitalcity or not everything is copied from movies, music, brand names and now even Engadget. Be happy Engadget your very popular, bringing them to court? You would need lots (lots) of money, patience and corrupt people to deal with. Here in Asia there is no such law, read... there is a law if your willing to pay for. MARIO BALI INDONESIA
Warner Brothers has enough well paid lawyers to decide what to do. Let them handle it.
Looking back at all the people that said this was Photoshopped... seems like they don't know anything.
The little smile in the kids "no" reply means he is lying.
Good work, Jereme!
WTH!, that people in Malayisia are plain crazy, I just heard about it from AmericasNewsToday.Org "Fake Engadget store in Malaysia".
You should take legal action, all these FREE publicity for them is priceless.
We support U engadget.com
ermmmm i am from Malaysia. I havent really been to that engadget store, but all i can say is that it is pretty normal for stuff like that to happen in Malaysia.
For example, "7 Eleven". I have seen many Malaysian version of 7 Eleven like 7 to 11, 7 to 7, seven11 and etc. All similar design. I mean hey, nothing can be done here, law sucks here i tell u, dont bother wasting ur time sueing them.
I am sure you heard of Panasonic before? There is this law suit against a local company which produce same product called "Pensonic". Hey, u know wat? Panasonic lost the sue, and They only thing they won is that Pensonic cannot produce any product to any other country other than Malaysia.
But if u want to find out more information on them... i dont mind to have a trip and visit them there. it is juz 15 mins from my house
It is entirely possible the guy is just an employee who doesn't know engadget.com, and was weirded out by the camera. What's only certain is the founders of the store knew what was up, so I think we should stop making assumptions about him unless we know he's the owner, especially when all we have is a video with no sound.
As for engadget.com suing the store or not, unless they were lucky enough to engage an International IP lawyer pro-bono, it's doubtful they would want to get entangled in a long, complex, drawn out (read: very expensive) legal proceeding. It's not even easy for companies like MS and Apple to do this. And engadget.com would never be able to prove that the store's name has resulted in a loss of engadget.com's revenue, or hurt its name brand.
I don't think he has a trademark on the word 'engadget'
Check for yourself.
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=searchss&state=sipj8t.1.1
What an uptight response from everyone from such a laid back site! Engadget isn't Metallica, being a big heavy man with a beard crying that someone heard him singing in the toliet. I give kudos to Engadget for an least seeing the less serious side of things. We have enough people complaining that McDonald's made them fat.
In fact, I would reckon that Engadget staff would have 100% illegal stuff on all their computers! Limewire and porno would keep you motivated at work during those long 1 hour days!
dude... what a joke! and quite surprising that engadget.com is brushing it under the rug, almost too easily? I know you guys are probably a bunch of nice guys, but ok... to each his own.
I say open a store next to them but with real engadget sign =P
If their logo wasn't exactly the same, I'd say it's a coincidence, but...
What you people actually learn from this is that you should open a chain of stores out there. Why not, it's probably easy enough out there to get all the fancy asian gadgets. This could get big!! Connect it with a web 2.0 :) webstore for all the others and... bingo!
Good ol' Malaysian ingenuity ;)
I'll have to stop by that shop next time I'm in KL!
Engadget really ought to talk to an attorney ASAFP.
While I admire the site's willingness to live and let live (suing at the drop of a hat is, to me, loathesome), engadget is overlooking the possibility that this store could sue them -- especially if engadget.com ever decides to open its own store.
Failing to take steps to protect its service mark, logo, or name overseas will diminish its chances of successfully defending its rights in the U.S. or other markets in which engadget might, y'know, want to have the right to use its own name.
Letting this slide is extremely unwise. There are several scenarios under which the Malaysian knockoff store could muck with the legitimate Website.
Calacanis, Meskill, somebody -- release the hounds, already.
If that shop is selling a product named Engadget, the owner will be in big trouble. But since this is just a name of the shop, he shall be fine. Just as someone mentioned "Oxygen". Copyright is a very complicated matter.
It's not fair to comment on the whole country on violating copyrights if you don't understand the law and culture in this country, pls get the fact right.
Regarding to the Panasonic and Pensonic issue, just to clarify, Pensonic has registered with Company Registration Body (Malaysia) years before Panasonic, although the history of Panasonic is older than Pensonic (in Japan). That's the reason Panasonic Malaysia lost the case. Pls get the fact right.
Pls don't flame on me, as I just voice out my two cents. And yes, I'm Malaysian.
Everyone here saying that you need to sue are a bit over the top. You DO need to contact a lawyer, though.
You need to do SOMETHING (documented) to protect your property, otherwise you are essentially waving your rights to said property. US copyright/trademark/property laws are a bit strange.
Since the fact that you are aware of this store is WELL documented here, you're opening the door to anyone wishing to create their own Engadget, be it store or electronics website.
Do they sale that exclusive Engadget T-shirt? I have yet to see it at Walmart.
Lol, thats awesome. I'm moving back to Malaysia next month, I'm going to go ahead and check it out.
They pirate everything back home; g'luck securing your copyrights.
Are you freakin kidding me????? Engadget got totally jacked by this clown!!! I say sue if there are laws in where that country is operating in!!!
For the guy that was complaining about Quicktime, download the DivX codec here:
http://www.divx.com/divx/mac/download/
This is the first link that apple offers you in its "Quicktime Components" page when you fail to load a file.
Though it may seem to really suck that Quicktime can't read or diagnose the problem in this case, avi files are really pretty messy things since they really are just a container file for a bunch of different formats requiring a bunch of different codecs. Quicktime does suck (no free full screen for instance), but I remember having problems loading avi files on my Windows PC as well.
Haha i remember this. I love that the guy just goes no...
Well anyway, if you EVER have codec trouble, just use VLC. It's got support for practically everything.
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
I've visited the store before, it's definitely a copycat as the shopping mall was open after year 2000 (can't remember exactly but definitely after year 2000), so the store wouldn't be operated more than 5 years.
If the logo has no bars at the right top corner I might consider it coincident... But no way on earth that's coincident with the exact wordings, fonts and top right corner bars... No freaking way... IMO, action should be taken, at least a letter or something.
Lol! I was planning to do the same thing! Make them nervous and sh!t (as I live in Malaysia)... Well, someone has already done it, so...
im a malaysian,and happen to be an avid fan on engadget.com..the first thing that came to mind when i saw the store at midvalley was:
"engadget has a store here??..wth.."
didnt know it was a knockoff..=p
ill be sure not to go shop there for any gadgets in the future..
Hi, I'm from Kuala Lumpur.. can anyone tell me the exact location of the store? I'd like to have a look :)
Hi guys, i'm from Kuala Lumpur.. anyone knows the exact location of the store? Would love to have a look :)
To be honest, if action not taken, it could become a habit... This is another copycat from a cafe in Malaysia call friendster (yeah, that spell exactly friendster) with modified Starbucks logo...
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y28/shehmay/IMAGE_125.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y28/shehmay/cetakrompak.jpg
Though not that clear, you can see the logo looks lot like Starbucks.
Unless we all like to see more of this in the future and get confused about who's been copycat who...
If anyone cant see he has three rings or whatever next too the T but still he knows about the site lol hes just lying and his shop is quite crap
Say someday you guys at engadget.com would like to open your own computer store. Would they be able to sue you if you do nothing about the copyright now?
Any lawyers here?
Dude, sue him ^^
I mean seriously, It may be hard to argue your right to the name in the future.
Engadget, I love you guys and read the site daily...but I must say I actually prefer this store's logo font over the one on the site, sorry :( It must be those curvy g's that do it for me, I'd wear a shirt with that logo :)
Wow! Hold the front page! You're saying that there IP breaches in Malaysia? You're kidding!
Why don't you all lighten up?
Let it go.
You really think that the guys who owns that shop is going to launch an international suit against a website that happens to share the same name? Yeah, right...
No wonder lawyers are so rich in America..
To all of you people who keep telling Engadget(?) or Peter to get a lawyer, I'm sure he has, or at least Weblogs Inc. has looked into this. Engadget, I believe, is owned by AOL or AOLs parent company(or something like that, please correct me if I'm wrong) so I think they are well covered if they or he need some legal advice. Peter's reaction to this is why this site always seems laidback and fun to read.
hey, im from malaysia and i have visited that darn bloody shop as well... Sells crappy things and spoiling "engadgets" name! I would definately send a lawyers letter and ask the name to be removed. Altough im from malaysia, im not suppoting this shop at all! kudos to the real "engadget"!
didn't you post this story like 3 months ago already?
Sue the bastards !
I'd laugh if AOL/Time Warner sued him on the behalf of its subsidiary Weblogs...
I'm from Malaysia and I walked passed the store a coupla times. Honestly, I actually thought the store belonged to Engadget the website, coz the RF coming off from the right-most letter "T".
Beanpants:
Malaysian law is dishonest? Well, it's a hybrid of Common Law & local laws, actually. This is why you shouldn't quit school, son.
Peter, where's this "Engadget store" exactly? I'm from Malaysia and have been reading Engadget since a year ago. This store, I've got to see for myself.
sue sue sue! sue the c**p out of them, or ask for gift certificates every month =)
It's in MidValley MegaMall's IT World. When you enter the IT World, just walk up straight and the store will be on your left.
You are in a different businesses. Remember Apple Records "the Beetles" and Apple Computers. The only thing you can complain about is the double quarter cirle about the "t". Which they can change to a triple "t". You will have a very hard time.
Doesn't appear to have a trademark in place, but first use is different than filing date and thats different than first use in commerce. If you can afford it, trademark it now, apply for the mark in foreign countries too otherwise, trade agreements won't enforce your mark. Works the same way in patents, I can get a patent in the US, but if I don't file an international patent, someone can create the same product and I have no recourse [well, never say never] but in a nutshell, if someone creates an identical mark and never sells within to the US and you don't hold a mark in that country... don't worry about it.
Aside from that, any business that provides services to a country wherein the mark is held can have the import of the good/service halted at the border because it is a violation of the laws of the country.
IE: protect it here, so no one else can use it here, then reach out quickly.
Always speak to an attorney, some people don't believe it, but 99.99% of them do have your best interests at heart.
看起来很诱人阿
Who cares?
This hurts you in absolutely no regard. There is much to life beyond business and financial gain, and far more to take far more seriously in your back yard.
A woman in Ethiopia sought a Starbuck's franchise legally and was denied, though many attribute Ethiopia as the true birthplace of coffee. One might argue that Starbuck's had plenty to gain by actually having a franchise in Addis, the captial.
Once denied, the woman created her own coffee shop with it's own unique name not at all similar to Starbuck's, yet mimicking much that she liked about the chain, which initially sparked her interest. Now she's making money hand over fist, with much less overhead.
Now that I've written this, I don't know that this supports nor negates my arguement, but I do know that had Starbuck's not been so financially driven, they may have reaped greater financial gain in this case.
Much of the world does not care about copyright. Who are we, but individuals with alternative perspectives and opinions, to say that they are incorrect?