Zenimax files trademark for "Dragonborn"

prosfilaes · May 24, 2012

Hussar said:
And, even Miami Dolphins trademark, I imagine, is a fairly specific thing - the logo, specific appearance, etc. Simply typing the words "Miami Dolphins" in a newspaper story will not violate trademark.

The words Miami Dolphins are certainly trademarked, as is the word Dolphins (in the context of football). It's just that you can use trademarks to refer to the product all you want, as long as you aren't imply they're endorsing you.

And I could certainly make a video game about dolphins in a Miami zoo.

So long as you weren't trading on the Miami Dolphins trademark. If you called it the Miami Dolphins game or anything of the like, the team could probably successfully claim in court that you were trading on their name.

Copyright, OTOH, is to protect intellectual property.

IP generally is used to refer to copyrights, trademarks and patents (and occasionally some other stuff) as a whole. Copyright is used to protect creative works as separable from any engineering aspects.

Snow White is a copyrighted movie. When the copyright ran out recently, other companies could produce Snow White videos because it's now public domain.

Copyrights run for a long time; for a work in Snow White's era, 95 years from publication in the US, provided you dotted your i's and crossed your t's. Other companies can produce Snow White movies because the fairy tale is in the public domain. If they too egregiously cribbed from Disney's version, Disney could still sue them.

Trademarks, I don't think, ever really become "public domain".

Trademarks have to be used. I'm not clear on all the ugly details, but a trademark that goes unused for long enough(and I don't know how registration affects this) drops into the public domain.

Griego · May 24, 2012

shamsael said:
A) Having something to say about it through ones lawyers is not the same as actually being able to do anything about it legally.

B) Using all of these things together is a lot less likely to work than using just one of these names in your game.

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OK, but you said it only applies if someone tries to name a product or market a product by that name. So, not if someone uses the trademark in a product that doesn't have "Dragonborn" in the title? That seems like rather poor protection to me... Why bother trademarking then? Any third party who wanted to benefit from the popularity of "Dragonborn" could very easily avoid infringement. Seems like a waste of time to trademark it.

shamsael · May 24, 2012

Griego said:
OK, but you said it only applies if someone tries to name a product or market a product by that name. So, not if someone uses the trademark in a product that doesn't have "Dragonborn" in the title? That seems like rather poor protection to me... Why bother trademarking then? Any third party who wanted to benefit from the popularity of "Dragonborn" could very easily avoid infringement. Seems like a waste of time to trademark it.

Trademarking prevents me from creating a brown fizzy liquid, calling it Pepsi, and selling it on store shelves.

Trademarking does not prevent me from mentioning Pepsi in a novel I'm writing.

shamsael · May 24, 2012

prosfilaes said:
The words Miami Dolphins are certainly trademarked, as is the word Dolphins (in the context of football). It's just that you can use trademarks to refer to the product all you want, as long as you aren't imply they're endorsing you.

So long as you weren't trading on the Miami Dolphins trademark. If you called it the Miami Dolphins game or anything of the like, the team could probably successfully claim in court that you were trading on their name.

IP generally is used to refer to copyrights, trademarks and patents (and occasionally some other stuff) as a whole. Copyright is used to protect creative works as separable from any engineering aspects.

Copyrights run for a long time; for a work in Snow White's era, 95 years from publication in the US, provided you dotted your i's and crossed your t's. Other companies can produce Snow White movies because the fairy tale is in the public domain. If they too egregiously cribbed from Disney's version, Disney could still sue them.

Trademarks have to be used. I'm not clear on all the ugly details, but a trademark that goes unused for long enough(and I don't know how registration affects this) drops into the public domain.

As far as I know, it's 75 years from the death of the creator, unless the copyright was filed pre-1976, in which case it's 75 years from the date the copyright is filed.

You can not use Disney as an example. Disney cheats.

Griego · May 24, 2012

shamsael said:
Trademarking prevents me from creating a brown fizzy liquid, calling it Pepsi, and selling it on store shelves.

Trademarking does not prevent me from mentioning Pepsi in a novel I'm writing.

Yeah, so? That has no bearing if WotC were to make a D&D video game (or license a third party to do so) with Dragonborn in it.

prosfilaes · May 24, 2012

shamsael said:
As far as I know, it's 75 years from the death of the creator, unless the copyright was filed pre-1976, in which case it's 75 years from the date the copyright is filed.

Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States

As you see, there's a lot of exceptions, but works published before 1923 are out of copyright, works published 1923-1978 get 95 years, works published 1978-2002 are life + 70 or 95 years from publication for a corporate work, earliest end 2047, and works published after 2002 are life+70 or 95 years from publication for a corporate work.

You can not use Disney as an example. Disney cheats.

How do they cheat? I suspect they take an extended view of their rights, but so do most other corporations and even private copyright holders. They bought and paid for some of the laws, but they have to play by the same rules everyone else does now that they're in place. Heck, Twin Books v. Walt Disney Co. is a controversial judicial extension of copyright, and Walt Disney lost that one.

Note that none of the above applies to law outside the US, which have their own complexities.

frankthedm · May 24, 2012

PHaTHe said:
In any case, this looks a little dangerous. This case looks similar to the lawsuit between Bethesda and Notch about the word "Scrolls". I hope companies will not suddenly decide to TM any regular-ish words to try to limit them being used in any other medias. Else we'll see more lawsuits like the "Scrolls" one...

Trademark trolls are nothing new in the video game arena.
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Sonny · Jul 6, 2012

Actually, I was playing the Elder Scrolls series lately (both Oblivion and Morrowind) and Dragonborn is mentioned in both. Surprised the heck out of me. Not sure about the earlier games though.