A TSR Announces a Star Frontiers Reboot

One of the new TSRs (yes there are now two TSRs!) has announced a reboot of Star Frontiers, the sci-fi game made by the original TSR back in the 1980s. Star Frontiers was a percentile dice roleplaying game set in a galaxy with four races (Human, Dralasite, Vrusk, and Yazirian) which were re-used by WotC in d20 Future in 2004.

Happy to announce that in addition to our flagship new world and game system by James M. Ward & Dinehart, GiantLands, and Justin LaNasa's children's RPG Tales & Tots, our next internal project "Star Frontiers", a reboot of the original, is currently in preproduction and has Larry Elmore attached. Stay tuned for more details!

It appears that one of the new TSRs registered the trademark in April. More if I hear it!

You can currently buy the game from WotC on DriveThruRpg, so I'm not sure how that works. When asked about this on Facebook, one of the TSRs answered:

Of course, Evil Hat Productions registered the Star Frontiers trademark, too, back in July 2017.

Is Evil Hat Republishing TSR's Star Frontiers?

Last year, Sasquatch Game Studio announced that it had acquired the trademark for TSR's old Alternity science-fiction game. At the time, it was mentioned that they did not have the Star*Drive, Dark*Matter, Gamma World, StarCraft Adventures, or Star Frontiers, properties owned by WotC. This may...

www.enworld.org

 

[Morrus]

Yup, but someone could ask them to corroborate or not TSR's "data". I mean I'm sure they won't answer on the record.

Corroborate what data? TSR hasn't presented any data about Star Frontiers sales figures that I've seen? I think you're the only person I've seen mention Star Frontiers' sales performance!

 

[aramis erak]

Trademarks have to be maintained every 10 years through a filing. Continued use by itself isn't enough. If WotC failed to file that document, the trademark could have expired and now be up for grabs.

Registration is not required for Trademarks, just established use and defense.
If fact, in the US, prior use of the registration is required before the trademark is enforceable. If not used, it's marked abandoned.

Legal requirements for registering your trademark

There are four basic requirements for filing a trademark (or service mark) with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

www.legalzoom.com

 

[CleverNickName]

Well, nevermind then. Yikes.

 

[darjr]

wait... so you can own the trademark without the registration.

It just makes it harder to defend, in court.

Unregistered Trademarks Under Federal and State Laws

What rights do you have for a trademark that is not officially registered, how can you protect it, and why should you consider registering it?

www.justia.com

 

[Parmandur]

wait... so you can own the trademark without the registration.

It just makes it harder to defend, in court.

Unregistered Trademarks Under Federal and State Laws

What rights do you have for a trademark that is not officially registered, how can you protect it, and why should you consider registering it?

www.justia.com

One begins to suspect that this "TSR" is a but of a Micky Mouse operation.

 

[Maxperson]

Registration is not required for Trademarks, just established use and defense.
If fact, in the US, prior use of the registration is required before the trademark is enforceable. If not used, it's marked abandoned.

Legal requirements for registering your trademark

There are four basic requirements for filing a trademark (or service mark) with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

www.legalzoom.com

Simple use is not enough. They also have to file a renewal that shows that you are using it. Without that renewal, you can lose it even if you are actively using it. It looks like WotC failed to renew and it was up for grabs.

 

[darjr]

Simple use is not enough. They also have to file a renewal that shows that you are using it. Without that renewal, you can lose it even if you are actively using it. It looks like WotC failed to renew and it was up for grabs.

Except you can still take them to court regardless of the registration to sue them for ownership. I think.

 

[Maxperson]

Except you can still take them to court regardless of the registration to sue them for ownership. I think.

That may not apply, though. That article was about unregistered trademarks, not registered trademarks that were not maintained. I'm not a lawyer and have no idea. It looks like the last time the Star Frontiers trademark was renewed was in 1994, since it supposedly expired in 2004 and went up for grabs. It has since been trademarked again and abandoned, and then trademarked this most recent time by TSR. WotC would have a hard time arguing that they were just late in filing the renewal. It has been 27 years.

 

[darjr]

Could be. I don’t know for sure either. But it does seem to me the key in any suit would be that it was being used actively, even while unregistered, by one party and not the other.

I’ll just concede with a “we might find out”

 

[Maxperson]

Could be. I don’t know for sure either. But it does seem to me the key in any suit would be that it was being used actively, even while unregistered, by one party and not the other.

I’ll just concede with a “we might find out”

Yeah. Another thing to consider is that even if it has been used actively, it has been used actively in electronic PDF format. The statute above regarding unregistered trademarks talked about being able to defend the trademark in the local markets where it is being used. The Web commerce laws have been getting better, but are still pretty full of holes. What is the local market for internet sales? Does the law cover that?