At 10:29 AM 3/15/02 -0800, Anthony Valterra wrote: >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?).
No, I meant the OGL, in which the definition of "Product Identity" can be found. > >>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. Conceptually, I understand (and agree with) this. I guess the main thing that's confusing me is how would this be clear to someone reading the definition of "Product Identity" in the OGL? There is no definition including of what can or cannot be an "identifying mark." Is this a specific legal term of art which an attorney would recognize? >Correct. The name of the feat "Run" is not protectable. The exact word for >word description of the feat is copyrightable. Maybe this is where my NAL-ness shows through. Why? Wouldn't the name of the feat be part of the feat for the purposes of copyright protection? If I reworded someone's Run feat, but kept the same name, would I be violating copyright? >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. Actually, that was exactly my point. :-) I was just saying (badly, perhaps) that whatever "regular" copyright and trademark have to say on a subject, if the OGL says something different, it wins. So arguments concerning matters of OGL compliance which are constructed on the basis of "regular" IP law may not always be relevant. Sixten _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
