On Wed, 2003-07-23 at 10:38, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > How are you and Ryan drawing up your definition of "ownership" of PI > to include "enhancement over the prior art" and novelty?
Issue One: I have not, and am not using the words "ownership" or "novelty". Neither term is applicable. Issue Two: In response to your quote: The ability to enforce a PI claim REQUIRES the ability to demonstrate that the person you're trying to enforce it against IS ACTUALLY USING YOUR PRODUCT IDENTITY. Full stop. This is a black & white issue. If, and only if, the work you are defining as PI is an enhancement over the prior art (insert Spike's expanded definition of "prior art" if you need to do so), AND you can demonstrate that a 3rd party is using it AND NOT some other content from some other source, THEN AND ONLY THEN you can enforce your claim. If the 3rd party can point at some work that predates your PI they have no legal obligation to stop using that material just because you elected to designate something in your work as Product Identity. You've made a legal, binding designation WITH NO ENFORCEABILITY. Do you understand the difference between "your PI claim has no value" and "your PI claim is invalid"? Do you understand why this critical difference makes your previous dozen or so messages moot? Let us use a clear and unambiguous example to illustrate this point. I publish a work that consists of nothing but the word "Thor". I license this work with the OGL. Furthermore, I declare the word "Thor" to be product identity. Q: Have I therefore stopped any 3rd party from using the word "Thor" in any work licensed with the OGL, or even any work that lists my work in the Section 15 identification clause of the version of the OGL they use in their work? A: No. Because the word "Thor" predates my publication by several hundred years. Any person who uses "Thor" in their works, even those people are linking to my work via a Section 15 listing, can establish, without a reasonable doubt, that their use of the word "Thor" is based on some source other than my work. Therefore, they are not using the material I identified as Product Identity. Therefore, I HAVE NO CLAIM TO ASSERT AGAINST THEM BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT USING MY PRODUCT IDENTITY. Hopefully, this will be the end of this thread. Ryan _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
