Yeah, whenever there is papers that try to redefine/takeover existing well known acronyms, i just get the sense that the goal is publicity through controversy.

I dont believe its just a coincidence, especially not when its an acronym so prominent. I mean who tries to coin a term without doing a basic Google search, let alone pick an acronym that is so well-known in the same field.

While the paper is good and definetly presents some novel approach. Re-using existing acronyms, especially such prominent ones. The main purpose of these acronyms to allow for readers to easily identify and reference existing methods.

If your choice of acronym forces all subsequent research to have to elaborate on which SIFT is mentioned, it is not only a poor choice but also a point of confusion. And existing papers that mention SIFT are retroactively affected.

As many in this thread has pointed out, there are other equally catchy, non-overlapping acronyms that could have been chosen.