Bethesda Says Mojang's Scrolls Infringes on Elder Scrolls Mark

[AngryBritishAce]

That's retarded. "Skyrim" and "Scrolls" do not even sound simular, neither "The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim" and Even JUST "The Elder ScrollS" is quite a big difference from just "Scrolls." Plus, the Fact that TES is one of THE most popular video game franchise, I find it hard to believe that people will get one of the most anticipated releases of 2011 with a indie game.

 

[bob1052]

I think a lot of this stems from how trademark law actually works.

If you don't actively enforce your trademark rights, you lose the trademark. Therefore it is safer to chase after anything that even remotely resembles infringement than to wait until a later date and hope you catch anything that is big enough to warrant trouble.

Basically, if Bethesda lets this slide without any trouble, and then next year some random person tries to make an "Elder Scrolls" game, they could cite Mojang's "Scrolls" as proof that Bethesda has not enforced, and therefore no longer has rights to their "Elder Scrolls" trademark.

Regardless of how much of a case Bethesda has, they have no choice but to take action in this situation. The outcome isn't important to Bethesda, as Mojang isn't stealing actual content nor trying to mask his game as one of theirs and therefore will not cause them any damage either way but the act of defending the trademark against something that could be remotely considered infringement is, however, very important to Bethesda.

What? Seriously? Geez! Why is trademark law written like that?

Its intention is to free up unused trademarks so that they can be reused, otherwise we would reach a point where literally nothing can be used.

Unfortunately it forces current holders to protect as it assumes that if you don't protect it, you aren't using it.

It forces the trademark holder (Bethesda) to be overly protective against even minor cases that wouldn't even cause them damages (Mojang's Scrolls) so that they can ensure that in a year or two or five someone who is clearly trying to infringe on their trademark can't claim the minor case (Mojang's Scrolls) as proof that they do not hold rights to the trademark any more.

 

[cora mcstrap]

Dear world, YOU CAN'T PATENT WORDS. Especially if those words have been in use for the past 1200 years.

Seriously, it didn't work with "Edge" it won't work with "scrolls"

No but they can be trademarked which is what Bethesda Game Studios is saying has been breached. This could go either way as trademarks work within fields. You could open a clothing store selling tarten called Mcdonalds but not a different fast food chain. Bethesda might win this they might not depends on the jugde.

note: my knowledge is of UK trademark law. it may work differently in the US

 

[xxcloud417xx]

They have stupid lawyers ... assholes...

There is no other kind of lawyer than stupid lawyer assholes.

aww, come on man... I'm studying to be one... and besides go watch How I Met Your Mother, Marshall is the opposite of an asshole and he's a lawyer...

 

[theheroofaction]

snip

Whoops, okay, I used the wrong word, but the point still stands in the way I was intending.

See, scrolls is an actual word so it (at least by U.S. law) can't be trademarked, While "the elder scrolls" being a phrase that Bethesda created, can be trademarked.

Besides, does anybody remember the whole "edge" debacle and how that ended?

 

[Sofus]

This is no good at all ZeniMax. Let us just hope that Bethesda will do the same thing Blizzard did when Activision attempted to hammer down someone who made a mmo with the SC2 map generator thing.

After reading this, I cancelled my pre-order of Skyrim. I really hope that ZeniMax will let this slide, or find a peacefull solution.


If not.. well, I always side with the indie developers.

 

[PoweD]

I love how people are complaining about not trademarking words when Notch just did that.

 

[sinterklaas]

'The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim' and 'Scrolls' are not similar in any way, especially since the first one is referenced to as Skyrim, and not The Elder Scrolls.

They have no case at all, Notch will win this easily.

Why not sue everyone using the word 'The' in their products -_-

 

[dancinginfernal]

So somehow this is Zenimax's fault according to some of you?

Look...Bethesda buys lawyers, they do all the legal work and make all the safeguards etc. and the lawyers just do their jobs. They actually need to have these safeguards and copyright rules even if you don't like them just because that is how it works. They probably will let Notch use it anyway.

They are ZeniMax's lawyers. I have already offered citations to my claims, I'm not blindly saying things. ZeniMax is Bethesda's parent company, and can sue even if Bethesda isn't up for it.

 

[TheXRatedDodo]

I'd like to say something intelligent, but all I can think is "Dickheads."

Fuck you Bethesda, that's lame as hell.

 

[w00tage]

Wait, since when does Bethesda have scrolls in their Elder Scrolls games? I played Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion, and I do not off the top of my head recall ever finding or seeing a single "scroll".

Edit: Follow up to this, anyone else notice that this happened AFTER Mojango got some money figures out in public? Who wants to bet me that this isn't a lawyer-driven scheme to get legal fees out of both Mojango and Bethesda?

 

[Pandabearparade]

Well, I have bought 3 Bethesda products and in my opinion, all three of them had no bugs at all.

That isn't a matter of opinion. In point of fact, both Fallout 3 and New Vegas had more bugs than a Big Mac tossed onto an ant hill, opinion just doesn't factor in.

That said, -my- opinion is that both games are in the top ten best of the past decade, and New Vegas would be in the top five. They were both just buggy as all hell upon release.

 

[cthulhumythos]

...i like bethesda more so i guess i will side with them.

 

[Feylynn]

Hey Bethesda, since you guys are so busy with Skyrim and shouldn't be spending time looking for all of the other people you need to sue I thought I'd help out and make a list.

Blizzard. This expansion the majorly infringed your copyright by making an entire SCROLLS profession!
Also, their popular and hotly debated Diablo games are infamous for having SCROLLS in them!
Did you see that? Blizzard made me use the word Infamous in response to their tomfoolery! You should call up Sucker Punch and tell them to help you sue.

Nexon published Maple Story which has many many SCROLLS that are used to upgrade items, in Oblivion I remember quite clearly that you could upgrade your items in that as well! Sometimes you could even upgrade them with SCROLLS.

Naughty Dog, now I haven't played Uncharted but I think I remember them using SCROLLS in one of their cut scenes once, you should put a stop to that shit.

Now a game development company is one thing but I have worse, my spies are giving me reports that all ages throughout history are actually spawned from copyright infringement of YOUR GAMES, they used time traveling SCROLLS to go back and write things of import on such SCROLLS!
Worse yet they did it ALL THE TIME.

I think Alexandria has as many as A BAJILLION copyright infringements in their library at one time.


Hope you get those criminals.
Love Fey-Lynn.

 

[Fursnake]

This is just such a stupid and petty move by Bethesda...

 

[brainslurper]

Yes bethesda, you own the word scrolls now, because it is inside of your game's title. Just like activation owns "Duty"

 

[brainslurper]

Snip

Plus one intranat for you sir

 

[Frostbite3789]

I hate Notch

Because hating someone for making a very successful indie game is totally justified...?

OT: Dear Bethesda,

Fuck off and die. First they pull the bullshit with Interplay claiming that the packaging of Interplay's FO and FO2 box confused people with FO3 (which was utter bullshit), now this?

Really?

The Interplay thing was legit. They were straight up trying to curb off the sales of Fallout 3. That's great they put out the original 2 and Tactics, but it's bogus to release something not too long after 3 called "The Fallout Trilogy" or whatever similar name they used.

Bethesda was well within their rights to have that changed. Interplay didn't have to sell them the Fallout license, but they did.

OT: I feel like if your lawyers are allowed to just send these kinds of letters out without any kind of consent from anyone who is high up in the company, or anyone at all, there is a problem.

...i like bethesda more so i guess i will side with them.

I seriously hope you are being sarcastic/joking.

If not, I just lost so much faith in humanity, it's unreal.

 

[Levethian]

Bethesda Game Studios ≠ Bethesda Softworks, let alone their lawyers. If we boycotted every product made by a company that enforces it's trademarks, then we wouldn't play many games.

Sure this is petty, but much of the Law is.

 

[RealDarkelfguy]

Well, it seems like everyone here is looking at this thing the wrong way. So I'm going to summarize what I've said elsewhere. Let's examine the issue at hand, shall we?

Notch trademarks the single word "Scrolls". "Scrolls" is a word used in Bethesda's trademark "The Elder Scrolls", so Bethesda attempts to stop Notch's trademark of the single word "Scrolls".

Let's rewind to an earlier trademark court debacle. Tim Langdell trademarks the single word "Edge" and then sues everyone who uses that word in their trademarks in the Game Industry. Tim Langdell sues EA for their trademark "Mirror's Edge", Tim Langdell sues Namco for their trademark "Soul Edge", Tim Langdell sues Cybernet for their trademark "Edge of Extinction", etc, etc...

Now let's fast forward to present day. Notch trademarks the single word "Scrolls". Logical next step, Notch sues Bethesda for their trademark "The Elder Scrolls". It doesn't matter how unlikely that is to happen, the fact remains it could happen. What we have here is Bethesda preemptively defending themselves from that ever happening. If Notch had trademarked "Scrolls: The Card Game" or "Scrolls: Any Subtitle Here", it's very likely that Bethesda would have left them alone and this whole legal mess would have never happened.

Bethesda isn't claiming they own the word "Scrolls", they're trying to stop Notch from claiming he owns the word "Scrolls". It's as simple as that. And personally, I don't think single words that are as common and generic as "Scrolls" should be allowed to be trademarked, so I'll side with Bethesda on this one.