<<WotC doesn't own, and cannot successfully enforce a product identity
claim on the term "d20". That's why they didn't try to trademark
"d20" in the first place. The OGL specifically enumerates what a
company can claim as Product Identity, and "die types" are not on the
list. The list of "Product Identity" types is inclusive.
>>
"Concepts" and "Language" are PI types. They seem to collectively include a panoply of things that one might want to declare as PI.
I've seen the verbatim _expression_ of a concept copyrighted. I've seen a concrete rendering of a concept trademarked. But I've never seen a concept trademarked or copyrighted. "Concepts" and "Language" seem to be very amorphous and suitable for almost anything an author cares to claim as PI.
I can hardly claim myself that "d20" is neither a concept nor an _expression_ using language. Can you?
One thing that came up some weeks ago was the question of ownership requirements for making a PI declaration. Almost everyone seemed to agree that either PI seemed to encompass more than copyrights and trademarks (and thus might have different unstated ownership standards for the PI declaration) _or_ they covered only copyrightable and trademarkable content, in which case things like "concepts" didn't seem to fit and seemed to call for license reformation.
Would you care to enumerate for us, the kind of ownership and other requirements, etc. might be required to PI concepts, poses, etc. (things not traditionally thought of as copyrightable material outside of a specific implementation of the concept)?
That would close another thread that pre-dates this one if you had the "one true answer".
Lee Valentine
