By Well, that was quick. Last night the boys at CyanogenMod turned to the community to help with renaming their lockscreen clock widget — found on their popular custom ROM — after they were hit with a C&D letter (cease and desist) from someone claiming to own the rights to the name. Rather than get involved in any legal drama, the CM team decided to concede defeat and go ahead with renaming their clock widget. They posted the news on their Facebook and Google+ pages looking for new ideas and somewhere in the evening hours (when the team is apparently most active), they decided on “cLock.” You know, because it’s a clock widget for your lock screen (homescreen too). I thought it was clever.
[Google+]
Thanks, Squiddy!
rights to a name for an android lock screen widget found in a CM mod? Really? Who has the rights to that particular thing? No one. It was very specific. CM p*ssyed out on this one. Decompling and renaming.. that’ll show em.
Changing name = free
Going to court = money
Cm rom is free, in order to fight the case, they need to use their own cash.
Could not say it better myself…side note go Eagles
I agree, thumbs up.
are you going to pay for their lawyers so they can fight this?
That C&D is obnoxious, shame on them. It’s not even the same word, it’s Chronus vs Cronus
“Chronus” is the made up name. “Cronus” is the greek god. It’s like BluRay. That’s patented, because there’s no such thing as “Blu” and you can’t patent a color which is why they didn’t call it “BlueRay”.
That’s probably what’s going on.
But if what you’re saying is true, are you saying that this company patent “Cronus” and is sending the C&D letter? Which makes me wonder how do you patent “Cronus”? That would mean one could potentially patent “Zeus”, “Athena”, etc.
Chronus is an alternate spelling of the greek mythological god/titan. It was not made up by a 21st century company.
Um… I just looked it up. Chronus is not the greek god of time, but the personification of time. I’m understanding it as time as a person and not necessarily the person who controls time. But either way it goes, this still doesn’t make any sense as to how someone can patent the name.
Cool now can they rename themselves to SamsungMod since that’s all they seem to support?
(I want Android 4.2, sick of only Nexus getting updates and there is no Nexus on Verizon anymore)
Cyanogen works for Samsung. That’s why.
Blame HTC and any other manufacturer that says they were “forced” to lock down the phone, not CM. If any of the HTC phones were easily unlocked/rooted, don’t you think CM would be all over it?
Actually I blame Google for abandoning over half the US population with their garbage new Nexus not supporting CDMA/LTE
If there was enough interest I’m sure they would have. but seeing as how badly Verizon fucked it up and how much they have to control theyre phones its not worth it. the nexus 4 as is can be used on tons of different carriers.
CM gets builds based on support and developer activity. AKA popular phones get will get faster builds and more builds. It’s how the whole CM system works.
Lol @ the idea of trying to sue for the name Chronus
Even worse yet,
Chronus was the Greek God of time…………
CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZY that one would want to PROTECT what they CREATED. CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZY!!!
Yes because the other company was at any sort of risk here? The company I see is a mentoring and social learning company names Chronus. Yes I can see how a clock widget is going to harm them.
should have named it lockclock
How in the hell do you “own the rights” to the name of a greek mythological god/titan?
United. States. Patent. And. Copy. Right. Reform.
We NEED IT.
EXACTLY.
Chronus was the God of time for petes sake………..
Technically the greek god was called Cronus. Chronus is the Latinized form of the greek word Chronos meaning time.
But enough wikipedia references, I’m with you folks. No one person should have the rights to sue someone else for using any of those words. They should be public domain by now.
If you want to be technical
Cronus, Chronus, and Khronos are all meary translations of the original name/word Χρονος
:)
Ya because PROTECTING what you created is so anti american.
They patented a greek gods name? weird so do they have to pay royalties when someone uses it in a mythology film?
They created that word? News to me… I figured it was created by the greek centuries ago…
My mistake.
Why do you troll? why troll?
No no no. Apparently, the entity that issued the C&D stated it was too similar to their “Cronus”, as opposed to CM’s “Chronus” (which, I concede, is just plain dumb). But rather than fight it, CM came up with a new name in less than 12 hours which required no legal expenses and no stupid lawyers.
That’s beside the point. They basically used the corrupted patent and copyright system to bully CM into changing the name of a widget that is completely unrelated to their business platform.
I would have no only stood by my widget, but I would have counter sued the company. We can’t fix the system if no-one is willing to stand up for what is right.
And as other people have rightly pointed out, both here and other websites writing about this topic, where do you propose CM get the money/resources/time to fight such a legal battle? They have their own lives and real jobs while doing dev work in their free/spare time. Cyanogen himself works at Samsung, has a life of his own (don’t know if that involves wife, kids, and whatnot), and still somehow manages to be involved in the CM community.
They could have someone represent them. And the losing party would have to pay for time lost at work, so they would be either breaking even or making money.
Ultimately, is it worth it for CM? No, not really. But we (society in general) need to stand up to this kind of bullcrap and make REAL reforms in the patent and copyright system of law.
Apple does it all the time.
Hmmmm… There’s a lot of fuss and whining going on here. I suspect the commenters and the original journalist have made a mistake. I seriously doubt they have “patented” the name. I rather think they have a trademark though. An entirely different thing. It’s a perfectly valid complaint when someone has too similar a name.
If a patent isn’t used within 5 years, it should be up for grabs and they should have to go through the patent office (which takes forever) again. A lot of them are NOT unique ideas and are never implemented into anything. This is seriously slowing down development and innovation for everyone.
where do you get that live wallpaper? Is that a cyanogenmod exclusive?
Yes, what is that live wallpaper? I would like that on my nexus 4
Its called PAPERLAND…=)