Entrepreneur Alleges Elon Musk is Pocketing the Moniker ‘Grok’ with a Touch of Mirth

“Startup Founder Claims Elon Musk Is Stealing the Name ‘Grok’”

“Imagine if the founders of Google or Adobe had, in the early days, received a cease-and-desist letter from the Star Trek franchise demanding a name change. They might have grumbled, and then laughed—those brands bear no reasonable trademark-conflict with the starfaring series,” states the original Wired.com article.

Thus begins a journey of trademark turbulence. An unprecedented clash of the titans where we find our everyday language and pop culture intermingling with the techie world talk. But then, it’s a mad world where even “grokking” isn’t safe from legal intricacies.

Grok, a term gifted to us by Robert Heinlein in his science fiction lore, has found its way into our regular jargon. It means to understand something so thoroughly that it becomes a part of you. In a tech company, it’s akin to religious doctrine. So it’s no surprise that three software firms, absolutely enamoured with the term, named their products after the famous phrase. Each of them, blithely assuming they were the lone wolf grokking about. Spoiler alert, they were wrong.

This is “attack of the clones” all over again. We have Grok Solutions, GrokA.I., and Grokstream all hustling for the same name in the same industry, each believing they’ve grokked the term’s essence. Imagine the absolute cheek of it! And to add to the frisson, none of them seemed in the mood to budge.

Let the legal fun begin! Will it be Grok Solutions with its AI software development tools? Or GrokA.I., the predictive software developer, rightfully claiming its stake? Or possibly Grokstream, who was simply fashionably late in the trademark filing race? Too bad there isn’t a reality TV show for software companies, because this would be the season finale cliffhanger.

Alas, the tech industry is no stranger to such duels. You’d think entrepreneurs would learn from the cautionary tales of Facebook and Oculus, or Microsoft and MikeRoweSoft, or Apple and … well, several other Apple-branded entities. The moral of the story: a quick Google search before finalizing a name goes a long way, or else twinkly-eyed lawyers will, and they may not be fans of Star Trek, much less understand “grokking.”

So here’s to the Grok Trilogy. May we soon have a victor and perhaps soon after, a comprehensive list of sci-fi terms available for the next technological innovation needing a whimsical name. Can’t anyone come up with something original these days? I mean, alien language inspirations are clearly red hot right now, but don’t say we didn’t warn you when it’s time to grok the consequences.

Remember, even in the bold world of technological entrepreneurship, the saying “What’s in a name?” seems to still hold considerable weight. Let this trademark tango be a reminder that great minds clearly think alike, especially where Star Trek lexicon is concerned.

Read the original article here: https://www.wired.com/story/grok-trademark-dispute-name/