Author's Book Removed From Amazon By Bogus Trademark Claim
from the no-books-just-crooks dept
If you recall the company named Games Workshop from Techdirt stories, you likely already have a bad taste in your mouth from my mentioning them. The game publisher responsible for the Warhammer games twice went after fan sites that were simply building a better experience for fans of the game. We wondered at the time how a company could be so boneheaded as to target their own fans and level trademark suits at them instead of getting creative with a way to allow those fans to continue to be fans. Well, I have an answer for how they could do that, and it's going to surprise you.No, Games Workshop's CEO is not Satan...but you're close!
My theory is that the people working at Games Workshop, or at the very least their legal team, are in fact from a completely different universe than we are! How did I come up with this theory, you ask? Well, it all revolves around the company having Amazon take down author M.C.A. Hogarth's fictional novel over their supposed trademark on the term "space marine".
Today I got an email from Amazon telling me they have stopped selling Spots the Space Marine because Games Workshop has accused me of infringement on their trademark of the word ‘space marine’.
If you go to the Trademarks Database and look up the word “space marine” you’ll find the Games Workshop owns a trademark on the term “space marine,” but it only covers the follow goods and services: IC 028. US 022. G & S: board games, parlor games, war games, hobby games, toy models and miniatures of buildings, scenery, figures, automobiles, vehicles, planes, trains and card games and paint, sold therewith.Hogarth then goes on to say that she (shockingly!) didn't come up with the term for Space Marine after playing a Warhammer board game, but instead from what appears to be its original use back in the 1930's. At the time of this writing, Hogarth's blog post states that she's discussing the situation with the people involved, so hopefully that means not only is Amazon reversing course and putting the book back up on Amazon, but also be soliciting an apology from the company.
In any case, Games Workshop being unable to understand their own trademark is only mildly surprising, but their interest in trademarking what, to me at least, seems like such a common phrase these days got me wondering just how common the term "space marine" is. So I went to Wikipedia to see what they had to say, and that is where I discovered the shocking truth: "space marine" is an archetype of science fiction. Don't know what an archetype is?
"An archetype is a universally understood symbol, term, statement, or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated."This suggests two things to me. First, if "space marine" is an archetype, then by definition it is designed to be a symbol (amongst other things) for all to copy and emulate. That would seem to be the antithesis of this particular trademark suit. Secondly, if it is to be universally understood and Games Workshop didn't recognize this to the point that they decided to trademark the term as distinct, well, then they obviously are not of this universe at all. It seems clear that they're inter-dimensional lawyer-merchants that may, or may not, have plans to colonize Earth and destroy the human race.
Well, that or they're just kind of jackasses.
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Filed Under: space marine, trademark
Companies: amazon, games workshop
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It appears to be back up.
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Re: It appears to be back up.
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As bad as the MPAA
Sadly I really like their games. :|
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Re: As bad as the MPAA
All the awesome of wicked tabletop games, with none of that 'feeling like you just paid someone to mug you after purchasing one of their products', like you'd get from buying GW stuff.
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Re: Re: As bad as the MPAA
Ooopsie.
They managed to destroy their fanbase by running off the people willing to demo and judge events...
They are the 2 dominate players in tabletop minis, and both have taken steps to annoy their customers.
But you can find that in nearly all of the available systems. The big difference is with the smaller army size for PIP you don't get screwed as hard when they alter rules or models.
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Re: Re: Re: As bad as the MPAA
Wasn't aware they'd been doing a number on their fanbase though, from what I'd been aware of it was actually pretty solid if not rising, due at least in part to people bailing on GW and moving elsewhere.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: As bad as the MPAA
I spoke with someone recently who was bemoaning the new FineCast models. They are often flawed, and GW used to take good care of customers. Now the response to a customer asking for a miscast or missing piece to be fixed is basically to accuse them of having done something wrong... because the customer can cause there to be bubbles in the resin.
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Re: As bad as the MPAA
I guess the walled garden was preferable.
Still on the same cost level as their print work.
Resin costing more than metal... who knew.
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Well, that or they're just kind of jackasses.
What, they can't be both?
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From the halls of Mon-te-zu-u-ma...
Ships + Soldiers -> Marines!
Space + Ships + Soldiers -> Space Marines!
I always thought that Worf should have been labeled a Marine officer.
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Re: Worf
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Space Private 1st Class
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Re: Space Private 1st Class
You can guess where I want to stick this one....
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Space Marines - Have they read any real Sci Fi ?
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Re: Space Marines - Have they read any real Sci Fi ?
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Re: Re: Space Marines - Have they read any real Sci Fi ?
Found it. Here. Page 4:
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Re: Re: Re: Space Marines - Have they read any real Sci Fi ?
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Re: Re: Space Marines - Have they read any real Sci Fi ?
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Re: Re: Re: Space Marines - Have they read any real Sci Fi ?
Novelty means that something is completely new in the world. In patent law, patentable inventions must be novel. If an invention already exists, a second, independent inventor is not entitled to get a patent on it.
Originality means that something originated with the party in question. In copyright law, there is no novelty requirement, but there is an originality requirement. So an author can write a poem that is completely identical to another, preexisting poem (thus, non-novel) but only by coincidence, not by copying the first poem (thus, original, rather than copied). (In practice independent creation is tough to establish -- the more complex a work, the less likely this argument is to be believed)
Trademark law doesn't care about novelty. Trademark law doesn't care about originality.
Thus, you can take an existing word or phrase or other trademarkable device, which you didn't invent, and which you may even have copied from somewhere else, and so long as you satisfy the other various requirements for trademarks, you can get a protectable trademark.
Apple didn't invent the word "apple" and didn't originate the word "apple" (and may even have been imitating the already-existing Apple Corps record label) and certainly were not the first company to use the word "apple" in a trademark. But none of that mattered -- the APPLE mark was perfectly fine regardless.
So it doesn't matter that someone might have previously come up with the term (and idea) of a "space marine." It's not the least bit relevant for whether or not there can be a mark.
As for Apple suing people, a) more of that is due to patent, design patent, and trade dress than it is outright trademark, b) it's irrelevant.
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Re: Re: Re: Space Marines - Have they read any real Sci Fi ?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Space Marines - Have they read any real Sci Fi ?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Space Marines - Have they read any real Sci Fi ?
Many years later, of course, it did anyway.
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Re:
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Warhammer 40k --> StarCraft
Warhammer --> WarCraft
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Re:
Its a very good tactic.
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Wikipedia: Space Marine
(Footnotes omitted.)
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