Mojang win right to use the name "Scrolls" for their upcoming game | Hacker News Reader

Mojang win right to use the name "Scrolls" for their upcoming game

minecraftforum.net

149 pointscitricsquid29 comments

The court documents as linked below[1] state that this is an injunction and that the main proceedings will continue which may take up to two years. In other words it's not over yet. This was a preliminary injunction which ZeniMax has failed to secure but that can be appealed and that doesn't prevent the main suit from continuing.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3124409

Concur. Thank goodness for sensationalist headlines by the HN contributor which allowed us to succumb to the link bait.

"No preliminary injunction against use of 'Scrolls' by Mojang" would be better.

When ever <insert big company> sues <insert little guy> over copyright infringement people usually defend <insert big company> with the "they have to protect their copyright or they may lose it". I was wondering, how aggressive does a company need to be when defending their copyrights? Is it enough to make a copyright motion then settle outside of court for an undisclosed amount (say $1)? Or in later proceedings of other claims would that information be available in discovery and thus weaken the company's copyright claim?

I'm just wondering because I'm curious if Bethesda is "required" to appeal the initial ruling or if it's enough to let it be as it is.

It's trademark that you must defend or lose. Laches can apply in copyright, but you generally don't fully lose the copyright for non-enforcement. To answer your question, it seems like nothing is a sure thing in these court cases, so there's no bright line rule.

It would seem like licensing would be an acceptable path, but if you licensed to everyone then you would be diluting your own brand and therefore risk losing your trademark.

Thanks for the clarification on the trademark vs. copyright. Can you license to Company A for $1 and Company B for $10,000? I'm wondering if there's any regulation in place to prevent such behavior.

Trademarks aren't anything a holder would want to license out, though. First off, they're basically a brand's identity, and give the holders the legal defense to keep that brand name as protected. Secondly, they're very specific. Multiple companies can have the same trademark for different product categories. For example(like I have posted here before), Starcraft is a computer game developed by Blizzard Entertainment. It's also a pretty big recreational vehicle manufacturer. Both co-exist, because Blizzard does not make RV's, and Starcraft does not make video games.

There isn't any regulation in place because Trademarks are intended to reduce consumer confusion for products. A trademark owner is under absolutely no obligation to license out the trademark to anyone, and if it is widely licensed out, the holder can actually lose the trademark if it becomes a common name for the product.

In addition to certification trademarks and limited uses via "trademark guidelines" there's an interesting counterpoint in the case of Portal: Prelude.

Valve permitted (at the very least a verbal license) an independent developer to use their trademark (and other assets) in an unrelated project not controlled by Valve. I'm very curious on the line of thought of Valve's lawyers as to how this would be ok. Perhaps it's because Portal: Prelude requires Portal to be purchased in the first place and therefore doesn't actually compete with Portal?

I don't think that's an issue, a trademark holder could probably license at $0 to company A if the contract contained some other consideration. Obviously, if it appeared to be a part of an anti-competitive/collusion scheme then the trademark holder might run afoul of those laws.

The problem is that the license can serve to dilute your mark or cause market confusion. For example, if you're Kimberly-Clark and you license a small indie tissue brand to use the word "kleenex" then suddenly you've created the consumer confusion that your trademark is supposed to prevent.

There is a special case in the 'certification mark,' like THX, Wi-Fi or the Good Housekeeping Seal. Here, the whole point is to license the mark based on a set of (often loose) criteria.

This is an interesting and unique advertising opportunity for Scrolls to stay on the map and get attention throughout its coverage and eventual release.

You dont need to try and dazzle people with screenshots or gameplay videos or demos, you just keep posting updates about the case and everyone reads them out of interest and you get your little slilce of mindshare and remind folks to try it out when it is ready.

This seems like a win win for Mojang and a lose lose for Zenimax.

They won a temporary injunction. Hopefully zenimax will leave it at that, but if they decide to appeal this isn't over.

> Hopefully zenimax will leave it at that

Pretty unlikely considering the course of action so far.

Scan of the verdict: http://i.imgur.com/q33mW.jpg (in Swedish)

Edit: and a summary of it in English; http://i.imgur.com/t8s3p.png

>The original debate started when developer Mojang decided to make the working title of their new CCG-like game "Scrolls"

Not exactly. The debate started when Mojang decided to trademark the single word "Scrolls" and put themselves in a position where they could take to court game developers who want to use the word "scrolls" in the title of their games (or already use it). That's when Bethesda Softworks counterattacked aggressively.

During the whole process Mojang successfully managed to spin themselves on social news websites as the victims of a David and Goliath fight when they were in fact the ones who started the Trademark offensive.

Bullshit. Mojang was willing to drop that registration. Mojang and ZeniMax (well, their lawyers) were actually negotiating before they went to court.

And where do you get the crazy idea that someone with a trademark for “Scrolls” can successfully sue others with a trademark that also contains “Scrolls” in some way? What matters is whether customers might be confused.

Apparently, they wouldn't have to drop the registration, because it has been denied anyway by the USPTO. Also I don't understand why someone with the trademark on the game Scrolls cannot sue other games named Scrolls. It's the same reason why we don't have Teachbook, Faceporn or Lamebook. And that's the whole point of trademarks.

"Trademark offensive" is a somewhat coloured representation of the situation. See; http://notch.tumblr.com/post/8519901309/bethesda-are-suing-u... and http://notch.tumblr.com/post/10990169550/a-short-response

> Not exactly.

Not like your comment is any better. A critical part missing from it is that, soon after Bethesda indicated their displeasure, Mojang offered to drop the trademark application (and to move from just "Scrolls" to a composite title).

Apart from the trademark application (maybe, which they've yet to even remotely misuse or abuse with Minecraft, so I'd be more than willing to give Mojang the benefit of the doubt) the only actions I've seen them taking so far seemed to in good faith and in trying to resolve the matter as painlessly as possible for everybody (and somewhat humorously in the case of the Quake 3 match).

> and put themselves in a position where they could take to court game developers who want to use the word "scrolls" in the title of their games (or already use it)

Trademark law is nowhere near as insane as patent law, "scrolls" has been used numerous times as a sub-part of game titles (so the historical record is strongly against such a case), and the only people who have made those claims were trademark trolls (Tim Langdell) who got away with threatening people generally without needing to go to court.

> During the whole process Mojang successfully managed to spin themselves on social news websites as the victims of a David and Goliath fight when they were in fact the ones who started the Trademark offensive.

Please, how is trademarking the name of your next game a "Trademark Offensive"?

which they've yet to even remotely misuse or abuse with Minecraft, so I'd be more than willing to give Mojang the benefit of the doubt

Yes now. But they might be bought out.

Right.

In the event that its 4 (I think it's 4) founders (I assume they're co-owners, Notch could be the only owner, I have no hard info on the subject) decide to sell it (it's a private company so it can't just be taken over, and a buyer would need pretty good reasons to get them to sell, considering the founders are probably essentially set for life already) and that trademark law is as screwed up as patent law (it's not) and that the brand new acquirer has a trademark-troll streak, then it could become a risk.

We are pretty far from ArcticCelt's qualification that Mojang

> started the Trademark offensive

are we not?

It has been shown before that single-word trademarks don't protect every phrase involving that word any more than a multiple-word trademark covers the Cartesian product of the words in the mark. In fact, the most obvious parallels to the scenario you describe are Edge Games' failed attempt at trademark trolling and the reaction of Bethesda (whose mark is three words long) to Mojang that's the subject of this article. Additionally, Mojang hasn't shown any inclination to test it out in the case of "Scrolls," so it's hard to see what grounding your comment has in reality.

The only real facts here are "Mojang decided to trademark … 'Scrolls'" (the "single word" bit is a stretch, as that isn't how trademarks work to my knowledge) and "Bethesda counterattacked aggressively." The rest of it is your spin, which appears to be based mostly on a fictional scenario in which Mojang started threatening people with suits rather than Bethesda.

Bethesda should have played Quake.

+ bonus publicity

Note that this is a district court in Stockholm, so good luck selling the game to the US. I still don't get why they don't just choose another name; OTOH i guess all this publicity helps build up the buzz...

I’m not aware of any lawsuits in the US. Are you? As far as I know ZeniMax is currently only suing in Sweden.

(What good would it ZeniMax do if they were to win a lawsuit in the US, though? Mojang distributes digitally. Can US authorities block websites for trademark infringement?)

Apparently the USPTO lawyers refused the registration of the trademark due to confusion:

http://tdr.uspto.gov/search.action?sn=85323305# (check first document)

I have no idea what it all means, but i guess it's not a good thing to bring yourself to a position where you can lose the profits you earned because of a name choice, especially when you have been warned.

Short version: The USPTO seems to believe that it is too similar to "The Elder Scrolls", and denied the trademark based on the fact that the two would both cover electronic entertainment goods-in other words, both are video games.

What about a different meaning of scroll, like making a side-scrolling game and calling it scroll.

I'm think that usage may still be denied, depending on exactly what the application is for. Mojang's application was for basically all computer games. The application indicates that if Mojang was a bit more specific(i.e. for a computer card game), this might have passed.

However, there is a stronger part mentioned in the denial, which is for clothing. Mojang also applied for a "Scrolls" trademark with regards to clothing. There is already one registered under that mark.

I have no idea, but it would possibly handicap future channel possibilities like, for example, the deal where they're releasing Minecraft through xBox and Android.

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