TSR TSR (2) Confirms TSR (3)'s Acquisition of Trademark (Updated!)

Jayson Elliot registered the TSR trademark back in 2011 and used it to launch Gygax Magazine along with Ernie and Luke Gygax. The two Gygax's left the company a few years later after Gary Gygax's (co-founder of TSR (1) back in the 1970s) widow, Gail Gygax, forced the closure of Gygax Magazine. Then, earlier this year, TSR (3) swooped in on the TSR trademark, after Jayson Elliot accidentally let it lapse, as TSR (2) confirms:

We have owned the TSR trademark since 2011. Last year, we missed a filing date, and another company registered it, though we are still using it in commerce. While we could win a lawsuit, we frankly don't have the money to litigate. So, we're licensing it back from them.

As a result, there are two companies now using the name TSR. You can tell when it's us because we're the only ones using the new logo.

They're opening a museum in Lake Geneva at the old TSR house, and we wish them success with it, it's important to celebrate the legacy that Gary Gygax created.

Ernie Gygax, formerly of TSR (1) under Gary Gygax, then working with Jayson Elliot as part of TSR (2), is one of the founders of of TSR (3), and confirmed in his (now infamous) interview --

The other TSR is a licensee because [Jayson Elliot] let it lapse. But he had absolutely ... love for the game and the products. There was no reason to say 'oh you've screwed up, oh it's all ours, ha ha ha ha!' Instead, Justin [LaNasa] came to him and said ... we love that you're doing Top Secret things, we have a much broader goal for the whole thing. But there's no reason for you to stop or even have any troubles. Justin said, I'll take care of the paperwork, you just give me $10 a year, and you put out all this love for old school gaming that you can. And we appreciate that you were there to try and pick up things, and you produced Gygax Magazine, for in its time that you're also working on a game that you love to play ... because Top Secret was Jayson's love, as a young man.

TSR (2), still run by Jayson Elliot, publishes Top Secret, and is not connected to TSR (3) other than now having to license it’s own name from them. TSR (3) has also registered the trademark to Star Frontiers, a game owned by and still currently sold by D&D-owner WotC.

In other news the GYGAX trademark appears to have lapsed.

UPDATE! TSR (2) has decided NOT to license its own name from TSR (3):

Update to our earlier tweet - we will NOT be licensing anything from the new company claiming rights to the TSR logos. We are not working with them in any fashion.

 

[BookTenTiger]

This is a really fascinating conversation on trademark acquisition!

 

[imagineGod]

Are you really comparing having a product have a content advisory to being raped?

Are you intentionally mis-reading.

I wrote that things considered morally right within a time period may become morally repugnant. Hence, judging past actors by today's standards is not a valid moral stance.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Sirry to say this, but I find that denial to be tone deaf.

Just imagine telling victims of rape on campuses that there is no such thing as rape culture that pervades fraternities in American colleges.

If the victims tell you cancel culture exists, please, believe the victims.

When the "victims" are yelling that cancel culture exists to audiences of tens of thousands or more then they may claim to have been cancelled but clearly have not been or they would have disappeared. What's happened is that people have said mean things. It may be textbook cyberbullying but it's not being cancelled.

On the other hand when the Dixie Chicks basically disappeared overnight that was actually getting cancelled. As was Kaepernick not being signed by any team despite being good enough. Actual cancellation by its nature almost invariably comes either from cabals at the top or from the more authoritarian power structures on the right.

 

[Azzy]

Let us all be honest. Despite, many positives, some actions today that are considered "woke" have had severe negative results, one being the spawning of cancel culture.

LOL, no. "Cancel culture" was alive and well long before the advent of what you label "woke". And the real irony is that those participating in it are the very same people decrying it now and who consider themselves anti-"woke".

 

[imagineGod]

Yea, something like that isn’t a surprise from terrible people.

Are you indirectly insinuating some people are terrible? Based on what?

 

[darjr]

Are you indirectly insinuating some people are terrible? Based on what?

Evidence of their very own words.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

Let us all be honest. Despite, many positives, some actions today that are considered "woke" have had severe negative results, one being the spawning of cancel culture. And that is like Gary Gygax's Dungeons abd Dragons, overall positive, marred by some not so.

That does not mean being "woke" is a bad thing, at least not today. Just like Gary Gygax was not a bad man for his day.

Yet imagine if in the not too distant future, DnD 10th Edi, after critically looking at cancel culture issues a disclaimer that all old products that were woke are wrong.

That is how disclaimers of today can age badly with time passing. Hence, do not ride the moral high horse of today. It is not eternal nor universal.

No.

Ernie Gygax made it very clear in his interview that he was deliberately appealing to the reactionary wing of the OSR. The kind of people who get upset at "politics" (read: women and minorities) "invading" their previously overwhelmingly white cishet male "safe space". That's what this is all about: privileged people who feel oppressed by a taste of equality and fairness, who rage at the thought of having to share "their" toys. And whoever is running TSR(3)'s Twitter account isn't doing much in the way of damage control.

And speaking of "safe space", the TSR Twitter account posted an utterly asinine and oblivious take on the matter. I won't bother to link it directly, but here are a few critiques.

 

[Azzy]

Sirry to say this, but I find that denial to be tone deaf.

Just imagine telling victims of rape on campuses that there is no such thing as rape culture that pervades fraternities in American colleges.

If the victims tell you cancel culture exists, please, believe the victims. And also, please, no victim blaming.

If you're comparing being "canceled" to being raped then you need to stop right there are rethink that course of thought.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

And since the Satanic Panic got brought up, here's a quick refresher:

 

[imagineGod]

LOL, no. "Cancel culture" was alive and well long before the advent of what you label "woke". And the real irony is that those participating in it are the very same people decrying it now and who consider themselves anti-"woke".

It was never identified as cancel culture in the 80s. It was called the Satanic panic.