The difference is that somewhat haphazardly, Ev created an oral agreement and then confirmed the existence of the agreement in an email stating that Twitter wouldn’t violate it. There’s now a paper trail saying that Twitter wouldn’t do this, and that basically confirms that at minimum a breach of contract has occurred.
Patent trolls wait forever to take action on patent use only after a company gains susbstantial profits. On the other hand, a good example of patent enforcement would be initiating legal action at the first sign of infringement — before profits are made.
For the contract to be valid, there needs to be "cause" for confusing TWiT with Twitter. Most people would agree that there's no cause here, voiding the "contact"
From TFA: "At that time Williams, on behalf of Twitter, acknowledged the confusion which likely would arise from the use of TWITTER in the marketplace, as well as instances of actual confusion which already had arisen."
It doesn't matter what "most people would agree" if the defendant themselves are on record acknowledging the problem.
I've never heard anyone confuse Apple (The computer company who sell music) with Apple (The record company founded by the beatles), yet you'd be a fool to not see the problem in the overlap when Apple were on contract saying they'd only use it in the computer industry and then started venturing into the music industry.
> there needs to be "cause" for confusing TWiT with Twitter. Most people would agree that there's no cause here, voiding the "contact"
Meanwhile, Leo Laporte has had people asking him for almost a decade if TWiT is related to Twitter. The marketplace gets confused more easily than you believe. And a founder will get inundated with this confusion when it is about a company as well known as Twitter.
Patent trolls wait forever to take action on patent use only after a company gains susbstantial profits. On the other hand, a good example of patent enforcement would be initiating legal action at the first sign of infringement — before profits are made.