Steve Wozniak sued over alleged 'Woz U' copyright infringement

There's a big smell to this.

Poor Woz, not a business brain cell in his head. Great pioneering engineer, lousy entrepreneur and businessman who tends to be taken advantaged of, starting with Steve Jobs. A nice, lovable but gullible guy.

IANAL so I don't know the ins and outs of these things.
But hasn't Wozniak been doing all sorts of tech educational things over the decades? Then how would this be infringement? Sounds more like one of many initiatives Wozniak has done.
The guy says his idea was for it to use Wozniak's name, but it's Wozniak's name. How can he sue Wozniak for infringing on the use of his own name? Woz should have the copyright on his own name.
Ok so there was an attempt to start this sort of thing, but it died ten years ago. Doing something similar a decade later infringes on a completely defunct and moribund idea how?
Sounds like if this guy really thought he had a case he should have sued Wozniak a decade ago for breach of contract. It just seems like  he thinks that because the deal fell apart a decade ago he has first refusal rights on anything similar Wozniak ever does for the rest of his life. 
Or am I misreading this?

DAalseth said:

IANAL so I don't know the ins and outs of these things.
But hasn't Wozniak been doing all sorts of tech educational things over the decades? Then how would this be infringement? Sounds more like one of many initiatives Wozniak has done.
The guy says his idea was for it to use Wozniak's name, but it's Wozniak's name. How can he sue Wozniak for infringing on the use of his own name? Woz should have the copyright on his own name.
Ok so there was an attempt to start this sort of thing, but it died ten years ago. Doing something similar a decade later infringes on a completely defunct and moribund idea how?
Sounds like if this guy really thought he had a case he should have sued Wozniak a decade ago for breach of contract. It just seems like  he thinks that because the deal fell apart a decade ago he has first refusal rights on anything similar Wozniak ever does for the rest of his life. 
Or am I misreading this?

The copyright yes, but not the trademark. Even if your real name is "Ronald McDonald", you could not open a diner and call it "McDonalds". Not even if all you serve was sushi. 

To me, it sounds like this guy only got a contract that Woz would get paid (or compensated in some other way) for endorsing the institute that this guy was to set up. Woz was to have nothing to do with its set up. Kind of like how celebrities would lend their names to products they had nothing to do with, other than getting paid for endorsing it. If this guy never set up his "Woz School of Technology" then it's not on Woz, as his agreement only pertains to the use of his name and an endorsement. 

Sound like this guy only suit would pertain to trademark infringement, providing he trademarked "Woz School of Technology". If not, then he's out of luck. And even if he did trademarked the name, it would be hard to prove that consumers would confuse "Woz U" with "Woz School of Technology", when no one ever heard of 'Woz School of Technology" because it never existed. Which to me, this was why he set up a mock website using that name. And then was told to take it down by Woz team. Most likely  because he was not paying Woz for the use of his name.  

In order to retain a trademark, one has to be using it or marketing a product or service with that trademark. This was how Cisco lost their trademark to "iPhone". Even though Apple and Cisco came to some sort of agreement over the trademark, Cisco probably knew they would not win, when they sued Apple for trademark infringement.

https://macdailynews.com/2007/01/12/experts_cisco_lost_rights_to_iphone_trademark_last_year/comment-page-2/  

TheGadgetGuy said:

davidw said:

Even if your real name is "Ronald McDonald", you could not open a diner and call it "McDonalds". Not even if all you serve was sushi. 

That’s incorrect. 

You're right. One can not get  copyright of one's name. I knew that much, but I wasn't thinking in line of a copyright for "Steve Wozniak" but that "Woz" could be copyrighted, as it's a name that nearly everyone associates with "Steve Wozniak". But evidently not. 

But what most think as having "copyright" to ones name are probably thinking of the "Right of Publicity", that celebrities and well known people have, with some degrees, in most States. It's not a copyright of ones name or a trademark. But the "Right of Publicity" gives the celebrities and well know people the rights to control the usage of their name and images, even if they don't own a copyright or trademark to them.

https://rightofpublicity.com/brief-history-of-rop