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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ninjayeti" data-source="post: 7890167" data-attributes="member: 6789120">The important bit to understand about trademarks is that they exist to protect consumers – if you buy a Rolex watch or Air Jordan kicks the trademark means you can be confident (at lest in theory) of the source of the products.  (This is a major distinction from copyrights and patents which exist to protect creators/inventors.)So the main issue here is if consumers are likely to be confused and wrongly think a game called “Dungeon” is related to Dungeons and Dragons. The courts looked at the various factors that bear on this (similarity of the marks, knowledge of the relevant consumers, how the products are sold, etc.). As Morrus notes, the most interesting part is the court’s finding that the games, although once sold to specialized markets, are now mainstream and widely available.  Apparently the court has read some of those articles about how popular D&D has become!KMG also argued that “Dungeons and Dragons” was not distinctive enough to deserve protection as a trademark but essentially just describes of the game. (Descriptive terms get little or no protection; e.g. you probably couldn’t trademark “dungeon crawler” because it describes a particular type of game.)   KMG seemed to rely on the fact that many other games use the term “dungeon” or “dragon.”  The court found the existence of these other games was irrelevant, and that looking at the specific products covered by the mark it was more than just descriptive.The author of the linked post worries this is a broad ruling which could potentially lead to Wizards blocking any games from using the words “dungeon” or “dragons.” That seems unlikely.*  The name “Dungeon” standing alone would seem to raise very different considerations than a more specific name like say “Darkest Dungeon” or “Dragon Age.”  Indeed, I’d be more worried about the potential for abuse in giving KMG a trademark to the very broad “Dungeon.”Its also worth noting that this is just a finding that KMG isn’t entitled to this trademark – it is not a ruling that any of their games have infringed WotC’s trademark. *Disclaimer: this is a "hot take" not legal advice!</blockquote>

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