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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ExiledinElysium" data-source="post: 5077134" data-attributes="member: 74604">So I'm a law student.  I'm only in my second semester, and I haven't taken an Intellectual Property class yet, but from perusing what Lone Wolf has said about this situation, it doesn't seem to me that the person spearheading the effort has had any legal training.  For example:"...we are legally required to police our trademarks. We don't make the laws, but we do have to abide by them. Whether you agree with those laws is immaterial."This is just wrong.  Practically the first thing we learn in first-year Property is that property law involves bundles of rights.  There is no legal duty to police a trademark.  If you are the legitimate holder of a trademark, that confers on you a bundle of rights regarding how you can use and control the use of your mark.  At best, this statement seems to be a pigheaded attempt to make it seem like it's not their fault that they're taking these actions, but at worst it's a gross misunderstanding of the law.I don't know anything about this registration business or having an incontestable trademark, but it sounds fishy to me.  Notice is a big deal in the law.  As a general rule, people aren't subject to laws and regulations of which they are not aware (or more accurately, of which it cannot be said that they should be reasonably expected to be aware).  Check out Pennoyer v. Neff.  It's an old case that ruled that only newspaper publication of an intended property-based lawsuit was insufficient notice for the defendant party who lived in a different state.  I'm not sure what that trademark information from the government site means when it says "published for opposition," but I'd be curious to know whether companies like Privateer Press were ever aware that this trademark was registered.  The fact that none of us had even heard of Lone Wolf Development before today suggests to me that this notice was inadequate.If this attempt by Lone Wolf to enforce their trademark control gets contested, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it resulted in a change in modern trademark law on grounds of notice under the Due Process clause.Additionally, I'm thinking the "incontestable trademark" rule only applies to legitimate trademarks.  The purpose of the rule (I would think) is to allow for the possibility of two independent entities accidentally coming up with the same or extremely similar marks.  I'm pretty sure lack of opposition to a mark doesn't automatically make it legitimate; it still has to be something that is eligible to be trademarked.  I don't think this country has a system like the UK whereby generic marks are never allowed registration in the first place.  The US legal system prefers to address regulatory issues only in the context of actual disputes between interested parties, so they let anything register and if it becomes a problem it will be resolved in court.  I'd be surprised if a court upheld Army Builder as a trademark, even with this weird five-year rule.If I were to register the trademark "yogurt cup" or "nail clipper" and it just happened to go uncontested for five years, I would think it pretty absurd if I was suddenly allowed to bar anyone from using those phrases.  Coca-cola is a trademark.  LEGO is a trademark.  Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark.  Hell ENWorld is a trademark.  These are all titles.  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.Time for me to get to my Property class.Cheers,Kyle</blockquote>

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