Lone Wolf sends Cease & Desist letters to anyone using the term 'Army Builder'

[DaveMage]

A friend of mine has HeroLab. Runs it on his Macbook Pro. Really likes it and is using it for Pathfinder characters for our upcoming campaign. I had actually been thinking about picking it up.

But I guess knowing the company engages in this level of douchbaggery is getting me to consider spending my money elsewhere...

Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing.

However, if they were to apologize to PP (and its forum users) and admit how silly they were being, I could probably forgive 'em....

 

[jdrakeh]

Lone Wolf is not White Wolf.

I'm sorry, but you can't use those trademarks in forum discussion and, lest you cease, will be subject to legal action.












See? Now, doesn't that sound unreasonable?

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

... and now can donate as much as they like to whatever candidate they like in the USA (see recent supreme court rulling, and think about what that means).

Not sure if someone else chimed in here but I could not let this pass. This is false. If you really DID read the ruling you would know that corporations (and unions and not-for-profits and associations and etc) are still limited on how much can given to candidates. What was removed were bans against an organization being able to pay for issues ads directly out of their coffers.

Just sayin' so we're all clear.

 

[JohnRTroy]

I'm sorry, but you can't use those trademarks in forum discussion. See? Now, doesn't that sound unreasonable?

Trademarks can be used to describe a product, or to reference a product itself. That's not what this was about.

Remember, the specifics of this case was not every single use of Army Builder, but forum entries where people were referring to their battalion constructor as "Army Builder". Such as people saying "Pick up John's Army Builder 3.05".

Please note that I am *not* an attorney. I've talked at great length with our IP attorney, so I know a fair bit about this stuff, but it's distinctly possible that I'll not get something exactly correct. If I do, please point out where my language needs tweaking, and I can always check back with our IP attorney to get specifics, if necessary.

Thank you for coming here, Rob.

Just out of curiosity, did you guys ever contact PP before sending the note that got a lot of people upset? Was this note the first communication you had, or were there prior attempts?

 

[jdrakeh]

However I really do think a company which makes a fair bit of its money by stepping on other peoples IP shouldn't go round whining about its own ~ and that Lone Wolf rightly deserve a kick in the teeth for this bit of double standards.

IANAL, but I did find it odd that a company whose website contains this web page is suddenly very concerned with intellectual property rights. While the page in question merely links to scads of unlicensed, infringing, material for the purposes of promotion, that certainly may be enough for somebody to take them (i.e., Lone Wolf) to the cleaners if the February 2009 verdict against The Pirate Bay ends up setting a legal precedent.

 

[lonewolfdevel]

The first thing that I need to make clear is that we never demanded that Privateer delete references to the term Army Builder that were used descriptively. The demand was that they edit or delete references used within the proper names of tools that were directly infringing on our trademark.

There were two separate problems on the Privateer forums. First of all, a number of fans created their own tools and elected to name them along the lines of "Jim's Army Builder". We insisted that Privateer either edit or delete specific references to those tools, as they were a direct infringement of our trademark.

The second problem was that, most likely due to the name choices in the fan-created tools, many fans on the Privateer forums had begun generically referring to all roster construction tools as "army builders". So we informed Privateer that their user community needed to be educated that this was improper. We never demanded any edits or deletion of such posts. That response was entirely Privateer's choice, and it was wholly unnecessary.

Anyone claiming that we demanded Privateer edit posts that were not a direct infringement on our trademark (i.e. using our trademark as their proper name) is misrepresenting the facts.

I encourage you all to re-read the original message sent to Privateer and confirm this for yourself.

 

[jdrakeh]

Remember, the specifics of this case was not every single use of Army Builder. . .

I do not think that this is clear, either in the published excerpts of the original C&D request, or in the further explanation from Lone Wolf. While they do clearly mention instances of their trademark being used to promote some hypothetical product, they also seem to suggest that the trademark cannot be used in regular forum discussion.

 

[jdrakeh]

The first thing that I need to make clear is that we never demanded that Privateer delete references to the term Army Builder that were used descriptively. The demand was that they edit or delete references used within the proper names of tools that were directly infringing on our trademark.

Well, that is certainly more clear than the excerpts from the C&D letter and the previous attempts at explanation were. Thank you for being concise.

 

[lonewolfdevel]

Army Builder is not a title, it's a description of function. It's a tool to help you build an army for a wargame. If they wanted a trademark, they should have called it "Roster Monster" or something. The simple fact is that people have been using the phrase "army builder" to refer to these sorts of tools since long before Lone Wolf even existed as a firm.

Well, the USPTO disagreed with you in this matter.

As for "army builder" being a common term long before the company existed, I invite you to provide any evidence of this. For example, you can check the archives on YahooGroups and look for the "direwolf_wh" forum. This forum was one of, if not "the", primary online group for discussion of the Warhammer Fantasy game from GW. The available archives only go back to 1999, but that was one year after we released the Army Builder product. Do a search for "army bulider". You will find no references to that term that are not specifically related to our product. There are many different terms used for roster construction in those archives, but the term "army builder" is not among them.

 

[pawsplay]

Well, the USPTO disagreed with you in this matter.

As for "army builder" being a common term long before the company existed, I invite you to provide any evidence of this. For example, you can check the archives on YahooGroups and look for the "direwolf_wh" forum. This forum was one of, if not "the", primary online group for discussion of the Warhammer Fantasy game from GW. The available archives only go back to 1999, but that was one year after we released the Army Builder product. Do a search for "army bulider". You will find no references to that term that are not specifically related to our product. There are many different terms used for roster construction in those archives, but the term "army builder" is not among them.

I was actually looing for such a reference. However, your recent C&D activities have google-bombed the phrase.