Well maybe not you personally, but if you have a company page that uses the phrase frequently you might be in trouble. This might be old news to some of you but the stupidity over something as simple as a word is still putting me on a tightrope between amusement and anger.

Apparently, there’s a company, Fobis Technologies, which holds the right to the name “weemote” and they are none too happy about people referring to the Wii controller as a “Wiimote”. A “weemote” is a remote control for small children. This seems a little strange due to their design decision not to label ANY of the buttons on their remotes with anything more than numbers, colors or shapes. You can assign up to 10 specific channels to each number on your remote so your kid can view all their favorite cartoons with 5 buttons. Apparently they have an “adult” version of this too, which is exactly the same thing only black. The only difference is that the kid version of the remote also blocks all other channels not programmed into the remote. Adult versions of anything sound a bit pornagraphic to me.

National Console Support posted last month that a law firm contacted them and asked that they take down all references to the “Wiimote,” in case customers might get confused about the product that was being sold. They complied in order to avoid legal action, even though they feel that the word “Wiimote” is a bit of a stretch on copyright infringement.

I think this is kind of stupid to be honest. If the company had a store where the primary communication was through speech, this would make some sort of sense. However, Wiimote and weemote are not even remotely spelled the same. If someone was looking for this company’s product online, I’m sure they wouldn’t have a problem. Just another example of a company trying to either 1) ride the on the coat tales of a larger and more powerful company or 2) make some extra cash by being whiny.

The company’s owner, John Stephen, claims that this play on words has cut into the sales of the weemote. In his eyes, Nintendo is in the wrong for not officially buying the trademark off of the small company to give them the money to re-brand their product.

But why should they? Wiimote is a consumer-created nickname. Nintendo has not at any point affiliated itself officially with the name. On the other side of the coin, Nintendo has enough money to be nice and fork over the cash as compensation. This type of situation seems to be a bit awkward for both parties involved.

What it all comes down to is Stephen just learning to suck it up and deal with the blow. Life’s unfair and let’s be honest, the marketing for his product was not exactly spectacular before the Wii came along to “ruin” it. What do you think? Is John Stephen being a whiny emo kid or are the people at Nintendo corporate dicks for not at least trying to help a small company in need?

Via Gamepolitics.com