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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Glade Riven" data-source="post: 5785562" data-attributes="member: 86468">Umbran's statement is an oversimplification, but is correct...to a point. Copyright, trademark, and patent law are rather complicated. Copyright covers the expression of an idea, not an idea in and of itself. Trademark covers brand identity, designed to prevent confusion. Patents cover a process (technically, D&D's game mechanics could be patented; the process is an expensive and lengthy one, though). So let's look at the Illithid, an iconic monster of D&D and considered brand identity by WotC. Is the name Illithid or Mindflayer trademarked? Not according the the <a href="http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=tess&state=4007:ni3438.1.1" target="_blank">USPTO</a> (did a quick search). WotC may claim trademark without registering it, but if they ever wanted to take someone to court it would have to be registered with the USPTO before hand. Moving on to Copyright. Can their description of an Illithid be used by anyone? Nope, because the description is covered by copyright. That won't be entering the public domain for...well, a century or two. Maybe more, with the way copyright keeps getting extended. But you can write whatever description you want, so long as it is different from what has been published by TSR or WotC. The caviot is that if your description for your illithid is too similar to WotC, they can sue and they may win because your description would be considered a derrivative work. Unless you're trying to make money off of it, though, the likelyhood of being sued is rather insignificant. Since WotC has proof of prior use in commerce, they can even register the trademark retroactively. So, uh, yeah...pretty much what Umbran said.</blockquote>

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