Using Another Product's Name for a New Programming Language

I'm trying to create a programming language and I think "K" is a neat name. However when I searched Wikipedia, I found that a language with the same name already exists.

What legal case do I have to name my language that? Could I also name it "Java"? Is it the same for all languages (either can or can't in all cases)?

(Please note: I'm not worrying about confusion because it's mostly a hobby project only few people will know about. I'm still interested if I post it on some public website that it would be problematic. Also K is not a wide-known language either, and is sort of niche from what I could gather.)

The language implementation would be open source and nothing about it would be proprietary. It would be conceptually completely different from the original.

I also probably wont name it that anyway, but I'm still interested in the situation.

If it is just a hobby and you never intend to release it to any one publicly then you can call it AppleMicrosoftGoogleChewbacca and make the logo the Olympic rings and no one will ever care. If it is released someday then...

You would need to do a trademark search on the name you plan to use, I don't know if K is trademarked (however being that it is a proprietary language I would bet it is) if it is then you run the risk of being sued if you use it. If it isn't then you may be fine, however at the very least you are going to have trouble with confusion of users and of distinguishing online documentation for the two languages. K is very well known in some areas of Computer Science.

Java is definitely trademarked and Oracle has been willing in the past to enforce their trademarks.

As an aside the reason a lot of things in software development are not trademarked, or are released under open-source, free licenses is because the community tries to support growth and development of these languages. It is unlikely your language would ever be accepted widely if it has the same name as another language. I can also assure you that a good percentage of the people who will be interested in hearing about your programming language will know that there is a language named K and will judge you because you copied the name.

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Quoting brownj12

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If it is just a hobby and you never intend to release it to any one publicly then you can call it AppleMicrosoftGoogleChewbacca and make the logo the Olympic rings and no one will ever care. If it is released someday then...

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Well, it will be "released", meaning that it will be publicly available on some website such as GitHub.

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Quoting brownj12

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You would need to do a trademark search on the name you plan to use, I don't know if K is trademarked (however being that it is a proprietary language I would bet it is) if it is then you run the risk of being sued if you use it.

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What's the best way to search for patents?

"Trademarked" means they can sue me if I create anything with that name, anything proprietary, specifically a programming language, specifically a proprietary programming language, or a similar language...?

If it isn't trademarked now, but becomes trademarked later (doubt it), does the fact that I came up with my language before the original was trademarked give me the permission to use the name? (Kinda like how you can't charge people for breaking a law if it was introduced after the "crime")

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Quoting brownj12

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If it isn't then you may be fine, however at the very least you are going to have trouble with confusion of users and of distinguishing online documentation for the two languages. K is very well known in some areas of Computer Science.

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Damn it. I thought it was kind of one of those languages that no one really uses and that faded away.

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Quoting brownj12

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Java is definitely trademarked and Oracle has been willing in the past to enforce their trademarks.

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Yeah, who'd like stepping on their toe... Not even Google!

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Quoting brownj12

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As an aside the reason a lot of things in software development are not trademarked, or are released under open-source, free licenses is because the community tries to support growth and development of these languages. It is unlikely your language would ever be accepted widely if it has the same name as another language. I can also assure you that a good percentage of the people who will be interested in hearing about your programming language will know that there is a language named K and will judge you because you copied the name.

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I'm not really shooting for "wide acceptance", but you do have a point... I'll seriously consider another name as I said, but I'd like to solve this dilemma.

There are actually several languages called K. The Whitney language called that is just currently the most popular. K however is not being used as a trademark by those people so it's not likely you're going to get any infringement suits. The real issue is that your own use of the name will be pretty weak as a trademark and certainly confusing.

Java on the other hand is a trademark and calling a language or runtime framework that or just about anything computer related risks a suit.

For your own purposes, if you want wider dissemination of the language other than your personal use, you ought to give it a name that will allow it to succeed. People will tend to overlook you if you give it a name heavily associated with some other use.

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Quoting flyingron

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There are actually several languages called K. The Whitney language called that is just currently the most popular. K however is not being used as a trademark by those people so it's not likely you're going to get any infringement suits. The real issue is that your own use of the name will be pretty weak as a trademark and certainly confusing.

Java on the other hand is a trademark and calling a language or runtime framework that or just about anything computer related risks a suit.

For your own purposes, if you want wider dissemination of the language other than your personal use, you ought to give it a name that will allow it to succeed. People will tend to overlook you if you give it a name heavily associated with some other use.

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Interesting! Do you have any links? Also, if anyone could answer, is it possible that I find myself in a situation where the proprietor of original K decides to trademark the name and suddenly mine becomes illegitimate?

I know that I need a good name, but K for some reason sounds really attractive to me.

Also, my language would be fundamentally different than the original K. I would also develop a naming schema that would rely on a suffix, which seems to be a common practice amongst less popular programming languages that have short or single-letter names: e.g. dlang and golang.

Since "klang" sounds weird and has a phonetic connotation to it, I'd most likely use "kln".

What do you think about all of this? So far it seems that there are no legal barriers for me to name my language K, but I'd still like advice on whether my strategy is acceptable. If that's considered off-topic, please tell me so and I'll close the thread as solved :)

(Still I'd like the thread to stay alive since I still have an unanswered question about trademarks, and in case there's more input on the legal aspect of the situation.)

If they don't have a trademark already, then they could apply for one at any time, and since they have been using the name longer they would have superiority over your claim to the trade mark and could send you a Cease and Desist notice. Assuming you stop using the name after you receive a cease and desist letter you would likley not be sued.

As far as opinions on your naming strategy I can't say I am a huge fan. If I was using your language and was searching for documentation or code samples I would want them to be easy to find. As long as their is another language with the same name I would have to filter though a lot of unwanted pages to find the ones related to your language.

They have to use it in commerce. Just coining the phrase does nothing to establish priority.

As far as I can tell, K has been superseded by Q. How does this change the situation? (Concrete question in the last paragraph.)

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Quoting brownj12

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If they don't have a trademark already, then they could apply for one at any time, and since they have been using the name longer they would have superiority over your claim to the trade mark and could send you a Cease and Desist notice. Assuming you stop using the name after you receive a cease and desist letter you would likley not be sued.

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That sounds pretty unfair. I mean, what's the difference between not having a trademark and having one, if you can apply for it at any time and simply claim it over all people who began using it in the mean time?

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Quoting brownj12

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As far as opinions on your naming strategy I can't say I am a huge fan. If I was using your language and was searching for documentation or code samples I would want them to be easy to find. As long as their is another language with the same name I would have to filter though a lot of unwanted pages to find the ones related to your language.

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Well, I do have a solution to that. For example, Google's language Go is pretty hard to search for with just its name, because it's such a common word that forms numerous phrases in English. So the community usually searches for and uses "golang" instead.

So I think a suffix (-lang, or -ln) would fix search problems. Actually I don't think that "K" is my problem with that - the resources about it on the Internet seem quite scarce. Simply being a single letter would be my problem, so that's where the suffix will help.

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Quoting flyingron

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They have to use it in commerce. Just coining the phrase does nothing to establish priority.

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Interesting! However, does that mean that they can begin using it at any time commercially (sell it to themselves) and obtain a trademark?

Also, how do I tell if they are using it commercially? I waded through their website and the only language I saw referenced was Q, not K.

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I found something that seems crucial:

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K: Another Arthur Whitney language, this also uses ASCII characters. The company behind it has since decommissioned the language, but there is the open-source Kona.

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Source

And another:

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K appears to be dead, and replaced by Q. All licenses on it appear to be proprietary, and the interpreter appears to be harder to find (as they are trying to sell kdb, not Q).

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Source

I can't find any official information that would verify this. However, K is never mentioned on the Kx website, and Q is.

Pretty sure that the name won't be trademarked any soon, and since the language is considered dead even in its niche community, I think it's safe to name mine own K as well (and use the suffix scheme to get better search results).

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I wrote to Kx and Arthur to see what they think of it, and Kx asked me to use a different name because confusion and common law, implying that they could file for a trademark at any moment since they've been using it commercially for 20 years (I suppose, they didn't say it outright, but with the information I've got from you guys it was obvious).

So yes, I'm going to search for a different name, and this one will hopefully be unique. Thanks for all the help!

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Quoting someekel

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As far as I can tell, K has been superseded by Q.

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That was James Bond's work.

/excuseattemptatlevityplease