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="Abstruse" data-source="post: 8333056" data-attributes="member: 6669048">Why? I mean even if they wanted to use the TSR name, why would they buy the company? They'd just start using it. They bought the original company, they own the copyright on all artwork for the logos and the text for the games, they've been actively using "TSR" to sell reprint products on DriveThruRPG plus the White Box and AD&D 1st/2nd Ed collector reprint boxes they did. The only argument for an abandoned trademark is that Jayson Elliot's TSR Games was allowed to use the trademark unchallenged for most of a decade, but that's more of a defense of TSR2 or TSR3 using the trademark and not something that would prevent Wizards of the Coast from using it.For example, there's been two similar disputes over trademark in comics. One was over the term "superhero". Both DC and Marvel claimed they owned the trademark on the word. It went to court and was decided that BOTH companies owned the trademark, but only for the specific presentation "Super-hero" (note the dash). DC and Marvel were both fine with this because they got to keep using the trademark but also prevented anyone else from using it. The other was for the superhero "Captain Marvel". Both companies had classic characters using that name. DC owned the Captain Marvel that was child Billy Batson who, when he said the word "SHAZAM!" turned into a superhero from their purchase of Fawcett Comics. Marvel owned the Captain Marvel that was Mar-Vell, a member of the Kree Militia. This led to fighting over the trademark to the name "Captain Marvel", which was decided in court: They both owned the name so long as they continued to use it. This is why there has always been a Captain Marvel comic in print up until recently (DC finally gave up on the fight with movies about to come out for both Captain Marvels to avoid dragging the film studios into the confusing mess).So basically, if Wizards of the Coast wanted to use the TSR trademark, they could just start anytime they want. Whether they could stop Jayson Elliot from using it is a question that courts would have to decide (and likely part of the reason why Elliot didn't want to bother once Justin LaNasa and Stephen Dinehart's TSR Games started attracting negative attention). The only thing purchasing TSR3 would do is give money to a bunch of people who have gone out of their way to be antagonistic toward Wizards of the Coast and the D&D 5e fanbase.</blockquote>

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