On Thu, 21 Feb 2002, Marc Tassin, Ilium Software wrote: > So, from here on out I don't want to hear talk of "Diceless Gaming", > "Diceless <gamename>", "FreeDiceless" or anything else because its mine. > Got it? I own it. And I am going to fiercely protect it. Its my Trademark.
You've missed the point. Just because you've trademarked something doesn't mean people can't continue to use your trademark to talk about things in general since they aren't using your trademark when they do so. It just means no one else can use what you've trademarked (or something sufficiently similar to cause confusion) as their trademark. Nor can they use your trademark when marketing their products. (Not to mention the fact that just registering domains does not constitute possessing a valid trademark in the first place.) > And there is where I see the flaw in the logic...it may be perfectly > possible to trademark "d20 System" but I think an equally good argument can > be made that it is part of the public understanding of RPGs and the > descriptions of said RPGs and not something you can control completely. As > a result I don't see how "Free20" could really be considered an > infringement on the d20 trademark. Talking about a some system generically as 'free20' or even 'd20' is not prevented by the fact that WotC is claiming a trademark on 'd20 system'. What is prevented is someone attempting to market their product under a mark which infringes on WotC's 'd20 system'. If, as Ryan contends & I have no reason to disbelieve, no other RPG company uses the term d20 to market their products, it really doesn't matter that groups of people generically refer to the products as having a d20 system. Those groups are free to continue to do so. But the Free20 group is not using that name generically - they are using it as the official name of the RPG project they are building (which uses the D20SRD as somewhat of a base). That's where they could end up in trouble. If they start putting out rpg products with the statement "This product is compatible with Free20" they're using Free20 as a trademark rather than just in general discussion. alec _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
