NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wingsandsword" data-source="post: 1117285" data-attributes="member: 14159">I'm no lawyer, and can't pay for one, but a plain d20 is already being used to promote OGL non-d20 STL items.If you'll look at the cover for the Everquest RPG put out by Sword & Sorcery, the title says "Everquest Role-Playing Game" with a big red d20 with just the "20" visible in white between the "Everquest" and "Role-Playing Game" so that it can be read "Everquest d20 Role Playing Game" subconsciously by most gamers.Furthermore, the 3rd party publishers "The Game Mechanics" use a wire-frame d20 as part of their logo.  They may be staffed by former WotC employees, but they are still a separate and independent company using a d20 as part of their logo.Now, I am no lawyer.  However, I do know of a principle called estoppel, where by refusing to enforce a trademark or copyright it is lost.  Since the EQ RPG has been out over a year, in a relatively prominent industry place, made by a significant player in the RPG industry WotC must know of it, and there has been no legal action in all this time.  If WotC wanted to assert that the "red 20 sided die" logo was a violation of the d20 license, it would be more difficult since they had done nothing for over a year while knowing about it.  If 3rd party publishers wanted to use that same logo, Sword & Sorcery/White Wolf would be in more of a position to sue (and judging from the suit about the Underworld movie they may), but it is an example of a way to go with a sign that unambiguously means "compatible with all those other games that use 20 sided dice for task resolution" but not saying "d20 System".Again, I'm not a lawyer, but that's my layman's understanding of the principle (and a fantasy larp I play in got into an estoppel related case, so all the players saw the results of neglecting to enforce trademarks in a timely manner).</blockquote>

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