Comment Re:This is not unique. (Score 1) 622
You're confusing patents, copyright, and trademark so much that I can't make heads or tails of what you're raving about.
A company I know of applies for a copyright to a word (not common everyday word, but the name of a famous person from old times).
Copyright does not apply to "a word". Perhaps the company in question applied for a trademark.
There are hundreds upon HUNDREDS of other patents that were granted the copyright
This is complete gibberish. I really have no clue what you're trying to say.
The copyright that this particular company applied for was not only under a different category than all of the above, but it even had another acronym attached to the name, so it was TRULY unique.
Assuming you're referring to trademarks, appending a couple letters to the end doesn't make an old trademark new again. Trademarks exist to protect consumers from getting confused between different brands. Ever seen "Durasell" batteries? That would never fly in the US, because under trademark law, even though Durasell is "unique", it could (and, of course, does) confuse consumers into thinking that it is the same as Duracell.
Similar trade names can be granted individual trademarks if they exist in separate-enough markets. That's why Apple Computer was once barred from entering the music business by the court system. Even though Apple Computer didn't want to get into the label business, the Beatles' label's market was close enough to warrant concern about consumer confusion.
So if what you say is true and "hundreds" of other trademarks have already been granted, there stands a high chance that the intended market for your new trademark was too close to one of the hundreds.
So moral of the story is, you can have prior art all you want. You can LACK prior art all you want.
Prior art has little to do with trademark law.
I understand that saying "patents", "copyright", and "bad" is key to