Paint.COM

[Blooper]

Vlasta, the problem here isn't that Rick is annoyed with the fact that both programs have similar names. The problem is the law. The law FORCES Rick to do this. I wouldn't go as far as to say he doesn't care about the name of your program if legislative matters are excluded, but that's not the matter that's being discussed. We're not talking about opinions, we're talking about written texts that don't allow this.

[Rick Brewster]

I have to disagree. You may not know it, but people remember "Paint.net" as a whole.

I have been doing support for Paint.NET for almost 5 years, and have seen all sorts of names used -- you'd be surprised. People will believe that Paint.NET and Paint.COM are affiliated, which they are not.

Well, I think it is ridiculous.

Sorry, but you're going to have to lobby the people responsible for establishing international trademark laws. I'm not the one you have to convince.

Two freeware tools. Users can easily have both and it cost them nothing.

And they can continue to have them both once you change the name of yours.

You are required to take action if you think the two names are too close. You can also accept they are different enough, which is my true belief, and focus on things that matter to Paint.net users, like features.

They are definitely too close, as I have continued to state. It doesn't matter what your belief is.

(Actually, out of curiosity, I have to ask, if you or have done that in the past? When I saw the first versions of Paint.net, it used a surprisingly large amount of concepts similar to what I had in my released graphics tools. Using terms like "primary" and "secondary" color instead of "foreground" and "background", using right mouse button to draw with swapped colors and the toolbar choices for blending and antialiasing. Was that a coincidence?)

Now you're just grasping at straws.

Anyway like I've been saying, this isn't up to opinion. It's a legal requirement. I've consulted with my attorney and he agrees: your mark is confusingly similar to mine. You have to change it. If I don't defend my mark, then I could lose it.

By not changing your product's name, you are damaging the Paint.NET project. Not only are you causing confusion, but you're sucking up a lot of my time that would be better spent working on code. If it comes to litigation, you'll be sucking up more of my time and the money that has been donated to the project. If I don't litigate, then I lose my trademark. However, if you change your product's name then it's actually a win-win situation. There won't be any need for litigation, you'll be able to better distinguish your software, and everyone can continue on their merry way.

To me, it's clear that you're continuing with this out of spite. I don't think you actually have any desire to hold on to the "Paint.COM" name except to continue a fight.

So I'll ask again, one more time: Please change the name of your program to something which does not infringe on my Paint.NET trademark. It really is the simplest solution, for everyone involved (certainly the easiest way to get me to shut up).

[Rick Brewster]

Moving this discussion to e-mail.

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