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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
TSR3.5 Voluntarily Dismisses Lawsuit
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<blockquote data-quote="see" data-source="post: 8482798" data-attributes="member: 10531"><p>When abandonment kicks in is a judgment call, but proof of nonuse for three consecutive years is considered <em>prima facie</em> evidence of abandonment under federal law.</p><p></p><p>The second important fact is that TSR2 <em>also</em> registered and used the mark, and Hasbro/WotC apparently never disputed that use.</p><p></p><p>The third is that when Hasbro/WotC resumed use, TSR2, despite having registered the mark, apparently never disputed the Hasbro/WotC use.</p><p></p><p>So, anyway. If I understand trademark law correctly (IANAL, so my reading might well be skewed), there isn't any way TSR3 can win a declaration that they actually own the "TSR" mark, despite that being what they filed for the first time around. (Picking up a dropped registration just doesn't <em>do that</em> if someone else is using the mark in commerce; you can't seize exclusive control over an in-use-by-someone-else mark simply by registering it. And Hasbro/WotC was definitely using it for old product PDFs and POD in 2020.)</p><p></p><p>But, it is possible that "TSR" the letters, as a mark for games, is no longer subject to trademark protection at all. The period of non-use, and the mutual non-enforcement between TSR2 and Hasbro/WotC, serve as evidence that it's no longer a trademark. In which case, <em>anyone</em> who wants to can freely slap the letters "TSR" on their games.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="see, post: 8482798, member: 10531"] When abandonment kicks in is a judgment call, but proof of nonuse for three consecutive years is considered [I]prima facie[/I] evidence of abandonment under federal law. The second important fact is that TSR2 [I]also[/I] registered and used the mark, and Hasbro/WotC apparently never disputed that use. The third is that when Hasbro/WotC resumed use, TSR2, despite having registered the mark, apparently never disputed the Hasbro/WotC use. So, anyway. If I understand trademark law correctly (IANAL, so my reading might well be skewed), there isn't any way TSR3 can win a declaration that they actually own the "TSR" mark, despite that being what they filed for the first time around. (Picking up a dropped registration just doesn't [I]do that[/I] if someone else is using the mark in commerce; you can't seize exclusive control over an in-use-by-someone-else mark simply by registering it. And Hasbro/WotC was definitely using it for old product PDFs and POD in 2020.) But, it is possible that "TSR" the letters, as a mark for games, is no longer subject to trademark protection at all. The period of non-use, and the mutual non-enforcement between TSR2 and Hasbro/WotC, serve as evidence that it's no longer a trademark. In which case, [I]anyone[/I] who wants to can freely slap the letters "TSR" on their games. [/QUOTE]
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TSR3.5 Voluntarily Dismisses Lawsuit
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