The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
I'm not holding out too much hope, given the involvement of Mearls. Does anyone else remember how condescending and insulting toward 3e players the 4e team was when it released? They came just short of saying "your game sucks, and we're here to save you."
Anything that has Mearls' name on it...
Totally separate issue. The Federal Trademark Dilution Act is more broad in terms of protections it gives owners of famous marks (they recently removed the need to show actual dilution, for example). But it has exceptions as required by the First Amendment. Clearly no trademark owner can stop...
The Lanham Act doesn't back up your conclusion. I don't intend to get into a bit argument over it because I do this for a living and making a case in a forum is irrelevant, but I'd hate for anyone to be misled by the things you have been posting here.
"Use in commerce" is a broad phrase, and as...
By the same token, the sort of letter initially sent to PP is very serious to the business on the receiving end. It is the responsibility of the sender to make sure the letter accurately reflects the situation.
Lonewolfdev asks whether it is really that hard to ask questions and get facts...
You can do this on your house. If you were independently wealthy and opened up a restaurant where all you did was give away free burgers to the public, and you called them McDonald's hamburgers and had the McDonald's golden-M trademark on it, you'd have a problem on your hands.
And using...
This is not the case in the U.S. If you use someone's trademark on a free product and they can demonstrate a likelihood of confusion, you've got trouble.
Didn't want to quote the whole thing, but it seems to me this is an admirable, professional post. Not many companies I've dealt with would post this under these circumstances.
The fact that ARMY BUILDING or ARMY BUILDER or something similar might already have been out there for collecting toy figures doesn't necessarily mean anything here. Trademarks are tied to specific goods and/or services. Someone can have a mark with respect to one set of goods and services, and...
One important thing Lone Wolf could do with respect to their ARMY BUILDER mark is to actually use the circle-R trademark registration symbol in conjunction with it. If you look at the front page of the site, the circle-R does not appear next to the Army Builder logo, or after the name Army...
Just thought I'd make a quick statement about what bothers some of us here, and also make some general comments on trademark law just as an FYI for those who are interested.
Trademark owners do have a duty to police their marks. That is true; if they don't police them they can lose them...
I don't think the mark is generic. It's descriptive, in my opinion. I suppose they might have argued it was suggestive.
But yeah, I can't say I'm impressed by how Lone Wolf Development handled this.
I read the letter, and all I can say is this is why you have counsel send this sort of thing out instead of doing it yourself in a clumsy and inaccurate fashion.
In your initial letter you mention the DMCA, even though you are dealing with a trademark issue. Do you think the DMCA imposes a...
We have a group that meets at Valhallas Gate in Columbia every couple of weeks, sometimes more often. We typically alternate between 3.5E D&D and Star Wars d20. We also have a yearly halloween game with a horror theme, and the system varies on that one.
We might do some 4th edition, but the...