Folks, Here is a grand opportunity for me to say, "I don't know" alot. So keep in mind that these are my currently uneducated opinions.
>>Basically, I'm not sure how the definitions in the OGL lead to these statements.<< I believe that the problem is that there are two different issues being looked at "Product Identity" and the definitions of the OGL (do you actually mean the d20 trademark license?). >>Is the thinking that things that aren't "enhancements of the prior art" cannot be "identifying marks" (from the definition) because they aren't particular to the product in which they appear? Perhaps that some of these words are derivative of the SRD, and so must be OGC?<< Things that are not enhancments of the prior art cannot be identifying marks because they are so basic to the underlying concept that they are not protectable. You could not have "Car" as an identiying mark for your brand of automobile. >>I think that Mr. Meerschaert's argument (and correct me if I'm wrong) was that these names wouldn't be protected by normal copyright, and so cannot be PI. However, reproducing spell or feat names verbatim probably would be copyright violation.<< Correct. The name of the feat "Run" is not protectable. The exact word for word description of the feat is copyrightable. >>Furthermore, the OGL contains specific terms which supercede "default" copyright and trademark, and I see no restriction in the definitions that the PI terms must be in any way unique or "special," just that you use them to refer to your stuff.<< I'm not sure what you are refering to here. But in any case I think my answer is the same. The OGL is a license and we can require you, as a party to the license, to use certain terms in certain ways as part of your agreement to use the license. This may or may not have anything to to do with PI, copyright or trademark. Does any of that help or have I wildly misinterpreted your question? AV _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
