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<blockquote data-quote="Mark" data-source="post: 1022734" data-attributes="member: 5">Ben - Rather than quote your rebuttal, why not just take my first post as the &quot;bottomline&quot; it was meant to be and let's (and I mean both of us) leave the posturing aside?&nbsp; It was not (I repeat) intended as a troll but a distillation of what my longer post became for it was my feeling that regardless of how either one of us arrive at that bottomline, it was there to be considered as an inevitable outcome and an important point of refernce for any discussion that followed.IIRC, Ryan Dancey mentioned that at the beginning of all this (several years ago) WotC had wanted to to trademark simply &quot;d20&quot; but felt that &quot;d20 System&quot; was a safer bet and less likely to be challenged.&nbsp; Also, IIRC, there have been a couple of instances since that time where WotC has slipped in simply &quot;d20&quot; when making mention of the d20 System, and indeed their use of d20 as a prefix to the words &quot;Modern&quot;, &quot;Game Engine&quot; (which I do not believe is a trademark but which could likely be established in court as reference to their other trademarks) and soon to be &quot;Future&quot; (which I have no doubt they will establish in a like manner to d20 Modern) seems to suggest that they would love nothing more than to have everyone grow accustomed to simply &quot;d20&quot; as refering to the &quot;d20 System&quot; in total.&nbsp; They can strengthen their case for registering simply &quot;d20&quot; as a trademark by showing over a period of time that it has become generally accepted as synonymous with their previously registered trademark of the &quot;d20 System&quot;, if my understanding as a non-lawyer is correct.&nbsp; As to the other &quot;IIRC's&quot; I'd have to dig deep for those references or rely on someone else to bolster my memory of the actual facts.&nbsp; I leave it to others to step up and refute them or support them as they desire.It might also be a stretch but not inconceiveable that by using the simple term &quot;d20&quot; in a way in which it refers to the d20 System you are in fact in violation of this part of the d20 System Guide--in that it could be considered you are taking a portion of their logo (the typograhical portion) and pulling it from the logo to refer to the system that the logo is meant to be used to reference.&nbsp; Again, a possible stretch, but when it comes to using the license, and the loss of using the logo or the licenses hangs in the balance, I'd personally prefer to err on the side of caution.Just some more food for thought.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mark, post: 1022734, member: 5"] Ben - Rather than quote your rebuttal, why not just take my first post as the "bottomline" it was meant to be and let's (and I mean both of us) leave the posturing aside? It was not (I repeat) intended as a troll but a distillation of what my longer post became for it was my feeling that regardless of how either one of us arrive at that bottomline, it was there to be considered as an inevitable outcome and an important point of refernce for any discussion that followed. IIRC, Ryan Dancey mentioned that at the beginning of all this (several years ago) WotC had wanted to to trademark simply "d20" but felt that "d20 System" was a safer bet and less likely to be challenged. Also, IIRC, there have been a couple of instances since that time where WotC has slipped in simply "d20" when making mention of the d20 System, and indeed their use of d20 as a prefix to the words "Modern", "Game Engine" (which I do not believe is a trademark but which could likely be established in court as reference to their other trademarks) and soon to be "Future" (which I have no doubt they will establish in a like manner to d20 Modern) seems to suggest that they would love nothing more than to have everyone grow accustomed to simply "d20" as refering to the "d20 System" in total. They can strengthen their case for registering simply "d20" as a trademark by showing over a period of time that it has become generally accepted as synonymous with their previously registered trademark of the "d20 System", if my understanding as a non-lawyer is correct. As to the other "IIRC's" I'd have to dig deep for those references or rely on someone else to bolster my memory of the actual facts. I leave it to others to step up and refute them or support them as they desire. It might also be a stretch but not inconceiveable that by using the simple term "d20" in a way in which it refers to the d20 System you are in fact in violation of this part of the d20 System Guide- -in that it could be considered you are taking a portion of their logo (the typograhical portion) and pulling it from the logo to refer to the system that the logo is meant to be used to reference. Again, a possible stretch, but when it comes to using the license, and the loss of using the logo or the licenses hangs in the balance, I'd personally prefer to err on the side of caution. Just some more food for thought. [/QUOTE]

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