On Fri, 28 Jul 2000, Jared Nielsen wrote:
> It seems odd that you would sign an agreement with Wizards of the Coast to
> get permission to use a trademark for FUDGE. Get permission from whom? To
> whom am I liable if I don't get permission?
You wouldn't sign an agreement with WotC to use the FUDGE trademark. In
fact, WotC can't give permission for anyone to use trademarks owned by
other companies. The new language in the OGL requires that you get
permission from the owner of a trademark before using that trademark on an
OGL product. Since anyone can legally use a trademark of another company
for comparison purposes (as long as they identify the trademark
holder) the new language is basically an agreement by OGL authors that
they will not engage in such activity. As Ryan mentioned, the main
targets of such language are likely to be those authors who want to take
advantage of either the D20 or D&D trademarks - claiming that their OGL
product is compatible with one, the other or both. If you want to take
advantage of the D20 trademark you need to publish under the D20STL; if
you want the advantage of the D&D trademark you need to get a job at WotC.
> If I place a FUDGE trademark on an OGL book without permission, am I liable
> to WotC?
Well, you'd be violating the OGL agreement. I'll admit to being a little
unclear as to who would actually be enforcing that agreement: WotC, OGF,
or any other OGL author. More important is that you'll have provided the
holder of the trademark you are using a strong piece to use to stop your
use of their trademark. So FUDGE (btw, is there actually a FUDGE
trademark?) could use the OGL language as part of their attempt to prevent
the use the FUDGE trademark. If the company who's trademark you are using
doesn't care, I think it's likely that no one in the OGL is likely to do
anything. But as mentioned above, the two most likely trademarks that
people would attempt to use without permission are likely to be D20 & D&D
- WotC has made it fairly clear that they aren't going to grant permission
for the use of either of these trademarks.
alec
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