On Thu, 11 May 2000, Ron Bedison wrote:
> On Thu, 11 May 2000, Kal Lin wrote:
> > You are free to create/promote/market/enforce your own
> > trademarked logo and to create products under that trademark
> > which demonstrate your convictions.
>
> No, he is not, reminding you that those convictions are
> "use the D&D name to promote my product by ensuring
> compatibility" (i.e. "100% D&D compatible!").
Your OWN trademark means one that doesn't infringe on someone
elses. One can say his trademark represents the finest in
traditional fantasy role playing or a quality experience based
on time proven medieval fantasy RPG settings. One can see from
his products what his convictions and quality are. Of course,
it may be easier and more convenient to say "D&D compatible."
But the reason for that is TSR built up those connotations and
associations on their trademark throughout the years (which
presumably is why WotC bought the company).
My opinion is if one wants to distinguish their d20 products
from someone elses d20 products they should do it (define/plan/
market/promote and pay for it) themselves.
> So if your strong objections are based upon the idea that
> what he's asking for is possible but that asking WotC to do it
> for him is too much to ask, then I suspect you need to check your
> premises.
What he is asking for is a free ride on a WotC trademark.
I am suggesting he makes his OWN trademark instead of
latching on to one that has been built up over the years
and paid for handsomely by WotC.
> Yeah, one license/trademark/restriction from someone with an
> agenda is enough! ;-> Selfishness is debatable. No, the
Exactly, but that one entity with the one agenda is WotC who is
making the big contribution. I think that is a pretty reasonable
trade off.
> real reason why they probable shouldn't/won't create one is this:
> because then they'd have to deal with making sure the products
> actually matched that description. This way, their asses are
> covered because they weren't promising as much to begin with.
If you mean some logo other than D&D to distinguish different
d20 products then yes, a certification process is time consuming,
expensive, and controversial. But the D&D trademark itself has
value and diluting it is not in the best interests of WotC even
if they can recover a certification fee to offset the costs.
Cheers,
--Kal
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