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.

 

[Bolares]

For those curious, this was the post cited in the other thread as an example of the "destructive mob going too far"

Which just.....

<sigh>

Well, at least we have achieved equality…

 

[Gradine]

Real talk, can I just take a moment to vent here, but can I just say how freaking disheartening it is that to know that the vast majority of the inventors of the medium, the titans of the hobby I love, despise me for being different? It frakking sucks, y'all.

It's so god damn tiring just reading how my existence has caused fractures or how backlash at folks insulting people like me is ruining lives and products and everything... it's exhausting. To say nothing about contributing to moving something, anything forward, inches at a time. I hate it.

Y'all are good folx here, and I appreciate you. Well, most of you, anyway.

 

[Libertad]

Tenkar's been making a big doc dump of the craziness of the new TSR. A bit of an emphasis on Justin LaNasa, but still a lot of good links.

 

[Gradine]

Well, at least we have achieved equality…

In the same thread someone Kramer'd into to call trans folx freaks!

 

[billd91]

Real talk, can I just take a moment to vent here, but can I just say how freaking disheartening it is that to know that the vast majority of the inventors of the medium, the titans of the hobby I love, despise me for being different? It frakking sucks, y'all.

Honestly, it's probably not that extreme. They probably just don't 'get' you and are more resentful that your presence and assertions of your identity disrupt the comforting little cocoon of illusions that gaming is an accepting hobby that they had around themselves. After all, if it accepted them - probably on the nerdy-ass, intellectual side of things, looked down on as terminally uncool by their peers - that was all that had to matter, right?
You shine a mirror on them and point out their shortcomings. And people hate that probably a lot more than they're actually opposed to your identity. Good ol' privilege fragility and all that...

 

[Umbran]

Folks,
I had to temporarily close the other thread while I examine it.

Anyone deciding to pull a repeat here will find themselves on a vacation from the site for being a royal pain in the neck, if nothing else. Please be considerate, kind, and respectful. Thanks.

 

[Malmuria]

Real talk, can I just take a moment to vent here, but can I just say how freaking disheartening it is that to know that the vast majority of the inventors of the medium, the titans of the hobby I love, despise me for being different? It frakking sucks, y'all.

It's so god damn tiring just reading how my existence has caused fractures or how backlash at folks insulting people like me is ruining lives and products and everything... it's exhausting. To say nothing about contributing to moving something, anything forward, inches at a time. I hate it.

Y'all are good folx here, and I appreciate you. Well, most of you, anyway.

It's hard to tell, actually. It seems that a lot of the people responsible for contributing to the game were written out of the later narratives of how it emerged. Gygax's real skill, imo, was in taking credit for making the game and putting it into a form that he could copyright and sell. He even minimized Dave Arneson's role, and arguably it has been Arneson's ideas and playstyle that have had more staying power than Gygax's. Further, as soon as the game spread people started doing different things with it, and scenes particular to California and the UK emerged (I'm sure this is all well-known; just recounting the facts). It's basically yet another example of organic, creative cultures becoming subsumed by capitalism.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

@Umbran, I'm not sure if this is possible or if this is the right place to recommend this, but maybe if someone was banned from a thread with practically the same topic as another one, they should automatically be unable to post in a thread of the same topic? Like, if someone is banned from one of the TSR 3 threads, shouldn't they also be banned from the other threads of the same nature (or at the very least given a warning on behaving better)? Maybe something like this could be worth considering, as I have seen that some people causing trouble in the other thread were ones banned from this thread.

 

[OakenHart]

In the same thread someone Kramer'd into to call trans folx freaks!

Not that it really makes it any better as it's still naughty word intentions, but trolls will be drawn to whatever hot topic threads gain a lot of notice. Could very well be someone just poking at whatever nest they see. It was that account's first post.

 

[Umbran]

@Umbran, I'm not sure if this is possible or if this is the right place to recommend this, but maybe if someone was banned from a thread with practically the same topic as another one, they should automatically be unable to post in a thread of the same topic?

We have no automatic way to enforce this. Any other enforcement requires a person - and this person was off having dinner and watching a movie with his wife, afk.

Foks who didn't hink twice about engaging n the same topic... are proably not goign to be happy with the ultimate results.