<<"Product Identity" is scoped to the work licensed. If the same content
comes from some other source, that other source is >not< Product
Identity, even if it is exactly the same content.
>>
If that's the case, and your scope argument is interesting, then the vast majority of PI is trivial to circumvent unless it is already protected by other laws (like trademark or copyright).
If that were the intent of the license then PI should have simply been defined as copyrighted or trademarked intellectual property that appears within OGC that has not been licensed as OGC.
Because honestly, if you can source exactly the same thing (like a name) from the public domain (and since the name can't be copyrighted by itself, only trademarked) then people could have their buddy (who hasn't read the OGL'd product) write a one paragraph story using the name, license it from him or grab it from the public domain, and utterly circumvent all protections for PI'd character names except those which are established because the name is a trademark.
Lee
