Nintendo Accused Of Infringing Trademark With Wii U WaraWara Plaza

So if it means laugh laugh. Can i trademark the team happy happy.

Everyone knows that I already trademarked the word laugh.

@Wiidsguy I think Doctor Who already has that one...

Wow. They just want more money I guess

@Wiidsguy Joy joy.

"'Mom', 'Love' and 'Screendoor' are registered trademarks of Mom Corp."

At least Microsoft isn't suing carpenters for selling windows.

@Dev Its a little different than an onomatopoeia, which is a sound word. In Japanese we have different words for those terms, based on if they are sound words (which we call gionngo) or motion-verb words (which are different than normal words, called "gitaigo"). An onomatopoeia would be closer to the first one.

Anyway, like the author of the article said, the term wara-wara is very, very common in Japan, though I personally use something different, a lot of people use that when they are commenting on something, similar to "lol".

This lawsuit is silly, and any lawyer familiar with Japanese will know that.

And yes, I've lived in Japan for years.

@Tsuchinoko: There would be a distinct difference between using katakana and kanji to write it, wouldn't there?

Thats just like Sega suing Level 5 because they made a soccer-game that uses touchscreen movement on the NDS. Outright stupid. (The difference here is that Inazuma Eleven was out six years already when Sega came with their patent)

Nintendo isn't even using the term that often...

Again....why now?!

maybe they should have called it something else from the get go like "nintendo cloud", or " Nintendo meet-up", or idk " NINTENDO PLAZA" thats a good one. Idk when I heard wara wara plaza for the first time I thought it was just another silly nintendo name, and I have never used it in a sentence until now.

Nintendo should keep ignoring that idiot. If he doesn't stop, they'll just give him 1 million dollars and bam.

I didn't even know what it was called...

This is really stupid. You aren't going to lose any money over this you dumb ****. There is no reason to sue. You just are a greedy little ****. Why waste time over something so petty and meaningless? Who cares?

@Dev
That seems to be the new cycle: Awesome Nintendo Direct, buzz for a week, then 3 weeks of doom & gloom, awesome Nintendo Direct, buzz for a week, 3 weeks doom & gloom. Its grown tiresome and almost comical.

I didn't even know it was called the Wara Wara TM plaza

Just a few comments from what I saw in the Japanese news:
1. They described as "izakaya" (Japanese pub), and not restaurant.
2. Monteroza claims that they have registered the name not only in kanji, but also in hiragana and roman letters.

Nintendo seems to be getting into alot of trouble over silly things lately. I don't know the details of the patent infringing though.

ha whats new and who's next...

I don't know what the Japanese standards are, but this passes the American "idiot in a hurry" standard for trademark infringement. I doubt even an idiot in a hurry would go to nintendo's warawara plaza thinking that it was the restaurant, or vice versa. And if there is an issue, the patent office is the one at fault for issuing two trademarks.

These guys have misunderstood what Trademarks are for. They are for letting individuals and companies to have an identity, not for owning a name. They only apply where misunderstandings of identity could actually occur or someone could pretend to be someone else, and as such very rarely are enforced across different industries. If Nintendo were to set up a restaurant with this name, that is when troubles might arise. No one is going to buy a Wii U in stead of going to a restaurant because they were confused.

I "wara" at Monteroza. "Wara" means "laugh"

And I thought Donald Trump and Paris Hilton were the only ones that can trademark words for their identity. I bet most people haven't even thought of Monteroza when WaraWara Plaza was first announced.

@Zyph Ikr, first someone who once worked with sony, then a resturant owner...what next?

Opportunism.

So thats why I didnt get food when I bought my Wii U. As the only moron stupid enough to confuse the two, I want a million dollar lawsuit!
Hopefully the system works in a way that no-one can trade mark a common word or phrase, but they can trade mark a phrase that contains a combination of words, such as Burger King or Donut King. Imagine if Burger King sued Donut King saying they trademarked King first.

Pathetic, there's no reason why a video games company can't use a trademark used for restaurants, it's not like they're even competing in the same markets for God's sake! Obviously the restaurant has seen an opportunity to make easy cash by doing that thing that American's are so addicted to, 'suing each other'. Really is scraping the barrel, I don't forsee this being much of a problem and it'll blow over eventually like so many infringement claims against Nintendo.

Wow, talk about nit picking. You'd think someone that knows enough to name his pub after that phrase would realize how rediculous this is, but guess not. You'd have to be pretty full of it to think there would be any brand confusion here.

Burn Monteroza.

WaraWara

Not the same market and its not like its a term only used for a specific brand. The complaints aren't valid imo.

"Hey! That stupid ex-idiot from Sony could actually sue Nintendo for the stupidest thing ever! Why not try?"

How about we let Nintendo go a month without being sued. Is that too much to ask?!

I trademark this one then ワラワラ

If Nintendo was issued a ™ for WaraWara, I'd have to guess the issuer is at fault. If it really were infringement, then it shouldn't have been trademarkable to them in the first place.
I can understand Mr. Restaurant wanting to defend his ™; because if you don't try to defend it, you may lose it.

Ok, great idea: lets trademark breathing....and air....and light...and everyone who uses it without paying royalities gets sued...
honestly, are people going insane at the moment ? Suing left and right

Actually it translates to 'chatter chatter' and is a word used to describe an environment of crowding people. This sucks, I'm comment #42 which means that no one is going to read this and the media has once again skewed something in the minds of many. Anyone who watched the Nintendo Direct the Sunday before last E3 would know this, so does that mean that a writer for Nintendolife.com doesn't even pay attention to the company he writes about? Sorry to call it out like that, but that's how it looks.

This is the kind of idiotic abundantly stupid news that makes me want to punch people who file these moronic claims in the throats.

I trademark your momma

Wara-Wara Restraunt. Or, here in the US, LOL it's a Resturant.

Someone explain to me what this Warawara thing is? I'm completely lost.

@Captain_Gonru yea, wish they could have come up with something more universal.

If it's that common of a phrase, I'd think nobody would be allowed to trademark it. Then again, the laws could be different in Japan.