I've been thinking about this and it's practically redundant, in the UK at least we have Passing Off Laws, which mean if you try and do anything that is clearly trying to cash in on someone else brand name, designs, look, feel, whatever... the original company is protected, because that's clearly not playing fair. Registering a Trade Mark on top of this is loading both barrels of the shotgun - it is worth doing for your main brand name / logo but probably little else, each situation is different of course. Registering Teatime as a trademark for your online chat time is fucking batshit crazy out there extreme!
If a competitor releases a similar product with the same name, they are not really very bright, the whole point of giving a product a name is to differentiate it from all the other products out there. As a competitor making a similar thing, but different - you REALLY WANT a different name! Choosing the same name is just going to cause confusion, make people dislike you, think you are foolish etc. it's a stunningly bad marketing decision, which is why NO ONE who is serious about building a name for themselves does this! and... why making all those names trademarks is absurd!
The ONLY time a third party would want to rip off a brand product name is if they are deliberately trying to produce clones of a product, which again is protected without going to the trouble of registering, Copyright Law and Passing Off Law apply by default, you don't need to do anything in the UK. I don't know what the situation is like in the US but I imagine it is similar.
Patents are specifically for functionality - so not relevant for names, logos, artistic works, one offs, they are specifically about protecting the *function* of a product typically intended for mass production. So we are a bit off topic here, but whatever, I don't care if no one else does.
I think you are correct, I think this is coming from a position of fear... although why I can't quite fathom, DV have a remarkable place in the community, they even have a whole bunch of third party companies producing accessories for their product - this is the holy grail of product development. They literally got it sorted... this trademark / patent registering frenzy is just weird, possibly greedy, possibly preparing for a war... who the fuck knows! It's bonkers whatever it is...
I am just laughing at them at this point. They are almost *asking* to be ripped off!
