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Coming up with new and hip brand names isn’t an easy task, that is unless you take the easy road and just stuck “I” in front of everything. For those most part these days marketing departments are finding all the reasonably catchy buzz words have been snatched up, and much to the surprise of AMD, so was Fusion. According to Arctic (formerly Arctic Cooling), the brand name Fusion is already used to promote the companies power supplies, and the trademark was acquired long before AMD came along.
Normally this would be a pretty cut and dry case of trademark infringement, but at least in this case, there is a bit of an interesting twist. AMD doesn’t use “Fusion” as a brand name on anything other than internal documents, and its main slogan “The future is fusion”. Outside AMD, Fusion APU’s are branded under the Vision processor family, giving AMD the opportunity to argue the use of “fusion” in its name is merely a descriptive verb.
AMD has even renamed its “fusion architecture” to “heterogeneous architecture”, so Artic has a bit of an uphill battle on this one.
Comments are closed on this article
krash3x
January 23, 2012 at 9:25pm
nintendo needs to sue them both. Metroid Fusion? Can you copyright a natural occurrence?
yu119995
January 23, 2012 at 12:50pm
Oh fuck off Arctic you never was. Maybe you can trademark those two words and come after me ya douchebags.
Archtard
January 23, 2012 at 10:59am
Trademarking/copy writing idividual words is absurd, unless the word was actually invented by the company. It seems that companies are spending more time sueing other companies to boost revenue than actually developing new products that people want. Welcome to the twenty-first century...where we steal and block inovation instead of creating.
Supall
January 23, 2012 at 7:18am
A better question is "why now?" APUs have been out for the past year and AMD has been mentioning these Fusion processors for years.
Deanjo
January 23, 2012 at 6:02am
"AMD doesn’t use “Fusion” as a brand name on anything other than internal documents,"
I beg to differ, AMD's use of "Fusion" extends well beyond that. Heck the even used it for some software and internal documents rarely have a logo for the product but you can find Fusion logos all over the place.
Caboose
January 23, 2012 at 10:10am
I was just going to say that. I drive a Fusion, and Ford just unveiled the 3rd generation Fusion not too long ago.
Oh no! Someone might confuse the car with an Arctic (Cooling) Product!!
austin43
January 22, 2012 at 7:00pm
The discoverers of nuclear fusion should sue both of them... lol
EDIT
OH! and don't forget to sue V8 for their tasty fusion drinks!
warptek2010
January 23, 2012 at 12:29am
Don't forget the pioneers of jazz/rock fusion too... Man those cats were cool.
Shadow Death
January 22, 2012 at 5:23pm
AMD has been using the word "Fusion" for quite some time now. It's funny Arctic just now decided it's a good idea to sue. I guess when you're not the top dog on the cooling market anymore it's easier to sue than fix your own problems.
