Mojang and Bethesda Reach A Settlement In 'Scrolls' Trademark Dispute

from the scrolls-will-be-scrolls dept

In one of the biggest letdowns in trademark history, Bethesda and Mojang have finally ended the dispute over the trademark status of the name "Scrolls". No massive court battle. No Quake 3 match. Just a simple settlement. In a very short post on the Mojang blog, Carl Manneh answers the two big questions about the dispute:

To answer the big question – yes Scrolls is still going to be called Scrolls.

To answer the second question – we aren't going to keep the trade mark.

So that's that. Which is probably just as well. After the initial ruling that gamers would most likely not be confused over the similar names, Bethesda's success in court was looking bleak. This was probably the best solution for all parties involved. Bethesda wins by not losing the appearance of control over the word "Scrolls", and not ending up like Tim Langdell. Mojang gets to continue calling its this game "Scrolls", while ceding the right to name any subsequent game "Scrolls". The only downside is that we lose the opportunity to set legal precedent on the ability to control individual words within a trademarked phrase.

Filed Under: scrolls, trademark
Companies: bethesda, mojang

Court Rules Gamers Are Not Idiots And Not Likely To Be Confused Over 'Scrolls'

from the won-the-battle-on-to-the-war dept

Mojang has won the first of several battles in its legal troubles involving the trademark "Scrolls". Via a tweet, Markus 'notch' Persson announced:

We won the interim injunction! We can keep using the name "Scrolls". ZeniMax/Bethesda can still appeal the ruling, but I'm very happy. :D

According to a Gamasutra summary of the ruling, the court found that although the games in question have a high degree of similarities, the target consumers have a higher than normal awareness and are thus less likely to be confused over the trademarks.

Nevertheless, the Court finds that there are similarities as well - both games/series taking place in a fantasy setting, and that consumers appear to be somewhat overlapping, and that as a consequence, there is a relatively high degree of similarity of goods.

The Court then goes on to discuss the consumers of these kinds of games. ZeniMax’s opinion is that it is the general public, which holds no particular awareness of differences between various titles and games.

Mojang on the contrary, has argued that computer and video gamers constitute a well defined (albeit large) group which is very much aware of differences between various games and titles. The Court finds mostly with Mojang, agreeing that the relevant consumers are not the general public, and that their awareness is higher than normal.

While this is not a decisive victory for Mojang, it does mean that it can continue to use 'Scrolls' in its regular course of business. Bethesda/Zenimax still has a chance to block Mojang in the future but for now nothing will change. We have yet to hear if Bethesda plans to appeal this ruling or wait for the full proceedings to commence. This ruling, however, does not effect the trademark status in nations outside Sweden. Which means that the USPTO's rejection still stands in the US.

In the mean time, perhaps Bethesda's legal team should reconsider that Quake match. Notch is still up for it.

Filed Under: scrolls, trademark
Companies: bethesda, mojang

Mojang's Trademark Application Rejected: Too Many 'Scrolls' For The USPTO

from the uspto-uses-papyrus dept

We have been covering the trademark dispute over 'Scrolls' and the pending lawsuit against Mojang's use of the mark. We have now learned that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has rejected Mojang's 'Scrolls' application for trademark status in the US.

The letter of rejection states that Mojang's application for 'Scrolls' infringes on two registered marks in the US. The first is for Bethesda's 'The Elder Scrolls'. The Second is for 'Scrolls', a registered trademark by a t-shirt company in California.

The t-shirt mark I can understand. Mojang's application listed t-shirts and clothing as areas where it is looking to use the mark. It seems pretty easy to understand why the USPTO would reject the application based on that criteria.

However, the logic behind the rejection based on Bethesda's trademark still makes little sense. According to the USPTO:

Regarding the THE ELDER SCROLLS marks, the applicant has merely deleted the term ELDER from the registered mark. The mere deletion of wording from a registered mark may not be sufficient to overcome a likelihood of confusion. The applicant's mark does not create a distinct commercial impression because it contains the same common wording as the registrant's mark, and there is no other wording to distinguish it from registrant's mark.

What really confuses me here is that the USPTO considers Mojang's mark to be Bethesda's mark with a few words cut out. This leads me to believe that the USPTO is willing to accept the idea that a trademark is not just limited to the full trademarked phrase but also to the individual parts. So not only does Bethesda own the trademark for 'The Elder Scrolls' when used in a game, but also to the words 'Elder' and 'Scrolls'. I hope that doesn't apply to the word 'The'. I really hope that this is not the USPTO's intention. If this ruling is left to stand, applying for a trademark could become an even more complicated process than it currently is. Not only do applicants need to look for exact matches to proposed trademarks, now they will have to make sure that individual words are not part of other trademarks. I don't think that is how trademark law is meant to function.

However, this rejection seems to leave room for Mojang to alter the title of its game by adding a subtitle or another word to the title as long as it creates a 'distinct commercial impression', however that is determined. Mojang has six months from the issue date of the letter to amend its application or appeal the ruling. It will be interesting to see what move Mojang will make in response to this letter.

Filed Under: elder scrolls, scrolls, trademark
Companies: bethesda, mojang

Bethesda Turns Down Quake Fight Over Scrolls Name; Takes Guaranteed Loss By Going To Court

from the scrolls-scrolls-scrolls-mountains-scrolls dept

A couple months ago, Mojang revealed that Bethesda had sent a cease and desist letter to the company over the use of the word "scrolls" in its latest game. Since then, Markus Persson, aka Notch, the creative mind behind Mojang and its massively successful game Minecraft, has been in a public relations spree against Bethesda. His boldest move was to challenge Bethesda to a game of Quake to determine the naming rights over "Scrolls." It would seem that Bethesda's lawyers were not impressed and, instead, have decided to follow through with their original threat.

As Notch announced on Twitter, "The Scrolls case is going to court! Weee! :D"

Gamasutra followed up with Daniel Kaplan, Mojang's business developer, who described the nature of the court filings from Bethesda.

He explained that the document reveals how Bethesda lawyers are using comments on Scrolls videos and articles about the game to prove that the name will confuse players into believing that Scrolls is part of the Elder Scrolls franchise.

"They even took screenshots from our trailer and said we copied them... we have mountains in the Scrolls trailer, and they have that too in Skyrim," he laughed.

This is all pretty much expected from Bethesda. However, in the comments on that article, Mihai Cozma made a good point, that "Bethesda will lose no matter what decision the court will take." As Cozma explains, "Notch is so popular among gamers and small developers alike as a person, nothing will dim that. The way he treated this accusations led to an image of 'the big guys who want to steal whatever this "poor" guy has achieved by hard work' for Bethesda, which is detrimental to them.'"

He is absolutely right. This has turned into a public relations nightmare for Bethesda -- which was easily avoidable. From the very first letter from Bethesda, Notch and the Mojang team have been very open and public about all events regarding "Scrolls" and the trademark threat. They have blogged, tweeted, done interviews with the press and have built up a lot of good will among gamers.

But what has Bethesda done? So far, all it has done is send threatening letters to Mojang and file the lawsuit in court. It has yet to speak to the press and share its side of the story and why it feels gamers would be confused over the name "Scrolls" and why it feels Mojang's use of the name would be detrimental to their business. What are they afraid of? Are they afraid they will accidentally reveal some information critical to their case? Or are they afraid that any statement will be misinterpreted by the gaming public and further tarnish their image? It's probably a little of both, but more of the latter.

As Cozma said, at this point in the situation, there is no winning for Bethesda.

Filed Under: scrolls, trademark
Companies: bethesda, mojang

Notch Comes Up With New Plan To Settle Trademark Dispute: Quake 3 Battle

from the ah,-if-only-all-legal-disputes-were-handled-this-way dept

We noted recently the ridiculous trademark lawsuit filed by game company Bethesda against Markus Persson's company Mojang. Of course, Persson is better known as Notch, and Mojang is better known for creating Minecraft. Mojang is working on a new game called Scrolls and Bethesda is suing because it holds the trademark on Elder Scrolls, for its series of games. As we noted in the original post, the really amazing thing about Notch was how reasonable he had been throughout the whole thing, even talking up how much he liked Bethesda, and hoping this was just some lawyers over reacting.

Well, now he's decided to offer an "alternative settlement" technique. Rather than, say, trying arbitration or mediation, Notch is offering to settle this over a Quake 3 match. Seriously:

Remember that scene in Game of Thrones where Tyrion chose a trial by battle in the Eyrie? Well, let’s do that instead!

I challenge Bethesda to a game of Quake 3. Three of our best warriors against three of your best warriors. We select one level, you select the other, we randomize the order. 20 minute matches, highest total frag count per team across both levels wins.

If we win, you drop the lawsuit.

If you win, we will change the name of Scrolls to something you’re fine with.

Now wouldn't that be fun?

Filed Under: elder scrolls, markus persson, minecraft, notch, quake, scrolls, trademark
Companies: bethesda, mojang

What Happens When A Reasonable Developer Runs Into Aggressive Trademark Lawyers?

from the scrolls! dept

A whole bunch of you have been sending in Markus Persson's blog post about the the legal threat from game developer Bethesda over his attempt to name his new game, Scroll. We've written about Markus, better known as notch, a few times. He's the eminently reasonable and quite successful developer of the game Minecraft.

What struck me about Notch's blog post wasn't yet another story of lawyers overreacting via intellectual property law, but Markus' continued reasonableness involving pretty much all things intellectual property related. Forgive me for quoting much of the blog post, but there are so many good examples of him acting reasonably. Let's start at the top:

First of all, I love Bethesda. I assume this nonsense is partly just their lawyers being lawyers, and a result of trademark law being the way it is.

He's being threatened with a lawsuit, and talking about how much he loves the company that's threatening him, and even giving them excuses for why they're threatening him. Okay, in this case, maybe he's being a little too reasonable.

Next up, he explains why they even bothered to try to get trademarks in the first place:

About half a year ago, our lawyers recommended us to register “Minecraft” as a trademark, so we did. I had voted against it initially, but we did it anyway. Better safe than sorry, and all that. At the same time, we also applied for “Scrolls”, the new game we’re working on. We knew of no similarly named games, and we had even googled it to make sure. I’m not even sure if you CAN trademark individual words, like “Scrolls”, but we sent in the application anyway.

I can definitely respect this position. While some countries (the US in particular) do allow for common law trademarks based on usage (meaning you never really have to apply for a trademark if you don't want to), some countries do have first to file rules, and that can make things messy. I'm not convinced that it always makes sense to file, but it certainly can be a "better safe than sorry" kind of situation. I also like the fact that he even admits that he's not sure trademarking a word like "Scrolls" is possible (though, the answer is that it is, with certain clear limitations).

(Disclosure: We’ve enforced the trademark for Minecraft once, when there was a minecraft clone on iOS, using our name. People were emailing me saying our iOS version was buggy and bad, so we asked them to change the name of their game, and they did.)

This is actually my favorite part of the post. This is how trademark law should work. When you have a specific case where there's a very high likelihood of confusion -- thus potentially harming the consumer -- it can be useful. And even then, he was careful not to go legal at all, but to just reach out and ask them to change the name... which they did. Everyone's happy, move on.

A while later, out of the blue, we got contacted by Bethesda’s lawyers. They wanted to know more about the “Scrolls” trademark we were applying for, and claimed it conflicted with their existing trademark “The Elder Scrolls”. I agree that the word “Scrolls” is part of that trademark, but as a gamer, I have never ever considered that series of (very good) role playing games to be about scrolls in any way, nor was that ever the focal point of neither their marketing nor the public image.

The implication that you could own the right to all individual words within a trademark is also a bit scary. We looked things up and realized they didn’t have much of a case, but we still took it seriously. Nothing about Scrolls is meant to in any way derive from or allude to their games. We suggested a compromise where we’d agree to never put any words in front of “Scrolls”, and instead call sequels and other things something along the lines of “Scrolls - The Banana Expansion”. I’m not sure if they ever got back to us with a reply to this.

When contacted by another company, even when he thinks their case is weak, he responds amiably, and tries to figure out a reasonable compromise that will make them happy.

Today, I got a 15 page letter from some Swedish lawyer firm, saying they demand us to stop using the name Scrolls, that they will sue us (and have already paid the fee to the Swedish court), and that they demand a pile of money up front before the legal process has even started.

I assume this is all some more or less automated response to us applying for the trademark. I sincerely hope Bethesda isn’t pulling a Tim Langdell.

And... blech. A perfect example of bad trademark bullying in response from Bethesda. While notch implies early on that this may just be a result of trademark law, he's being generous. While trademark law often does require proactive protection of the mark, that's often misinterpreted to mean you must sue anyone who does anything remotely similar. In reality, you just have to protect the mark from becoming generic. There's little evidence here that the use by notch in any way harms Bethesda. Hopefully notch is correct and Bethesda quickly comes to its senses and apologizes for going full-on trademark bully after he's been entirely reasonable all along.

Filed Under: markus persson, minecraft, notch, scrolls, trademark
Companies: bethesda