Games Workshop is actively perusing companies

They don't have a trademark for the term 'Space Marine'. That's the problem.

The article at escapist magazine covers it in quite good detail.

I don't think this has anything to do with DUST, though. The contension is over the term 'space marine', not the idea of superdudes in armour. A lot of trademark claims appear riduculous on the face but defending them is a necessity to maintain a a certain image your competitors don't

Next will be the U.S. Marines Corps pursuing games workshops for using the term "Marine" I would imagine.

More like Games Workshop pursuing the US Marine, and the Royal Marines, and any other countries Marines.

As an ex-GW employee I can state with a degree of certainty they will pursue this simply because they have the money, they have defended their niche at every turn, all that needs to happen is for CCP to find a reference to Space marines that predates GW's use. I would personally suggest CCP use the term space mariner, in the true nautical sense, and refer to 'space marines' as a colloquial affectation, btw astro jar heads is still copyright free. GW is litigation happy and as much as you/we don't like it there are ways to work around it. When I worked for them the very mention of a computer version of their games was anathema and discussing it with a customer was grounds for dismissal. From memory (which is old and addled) there is a reference to space marines in the Alien films, which was never pursued by GW.
TL;DR GW is throwing their weight around, another kind of smurf isn't going to affect their income....

Space Marine cannot be trademarked. Not because it is two different words, or even because it is a phrase using two different words, but because it is a generic phrase. I couldn't care less if Games Workshop wants to trademark it; I very much doubt anyone is going to let them do that.

Who was first? Aliens 2 or workshop marines?




REFERENCE :D

They are BIG part of that movie.

BTW the person who GW made the trademark claim against, has had her e-book returned to the amazon.com collection.

So as anyone who follows the industry will know, intellectual property battles are getting so ridiculous that we can expect the entire software sector to come to a grinding halt at some point in the next 5 years.

However, this one really made me facepalm. BBC is reporting that Games Workshop is actively pursuing companies who have products about "Space Marines".

That's right... Space Marines. Marines, in space.

Like Dust 514.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21380003

The earliest known use of the term "space marine" was by Bob Olsen in his short story "Captain Brink of the Space Marines" (Amazing Stories, Volume 7, Number 8, November 1932), a light-hearted work whose title is a play on the song "Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines", and in which the protagonists were marines of the "Earth Republic Space Navy" on mission to rescue celebrity twins from aliens on Titan. Olsen published a novella sequel four years later, "The Space Marines and the Slavers" (Amazing Stories, Volume 10, Number 13, December 1936), featuring the same characters using a spaceship with active camouflage to free hostages from Martian space pirates on Ganymede.[2]

A more widely known early example was E. E. Smith's Lensman series. While the first story, Triplanetary and most later sequels (Second Stage Lensmen, Children of the Lens and The Vortex Blaster) do not mention them, passing mentions of marines are made in Galactic Patrol[a] (Astounding Stories, September 1937GÇôFebruary 1938) and Gray Lensman[b][c] (Astounding Stories, October 1939GÇôJanuary 1940), and a more direct mention is made in First Lensman (1950): "Dronvire of Rigel Four in the lead, closely followed by Costigan, Northrop, Kinnison the Younger, and a platoon of armed and armored Space Marines!".
The phrase "space marines" appears in Robert A. Heinlein's "Misfit"[d] (1939) and is again used in "The Long Watch"[e] (1941) which is referenced in his later novel Space Cadet (1948), in all cases before Smith had used the phrase. Heinlein's Starship Troopers (1959) is considered the defining work for the concept, although it does not use the term "space marine". The actors playing the Colonial Marines in Aliens (1986) were required to read Starship Troopers as part of their training prior to filming.[3] Heinlein intended for the capsule troopers of the Mobile Infantry to be an amalgam of the shipborne aspect of the US Marine Corps relocated to space and coupled with the battlefield delivery and mission profile of US Army paratroopers.


Space Marines from Warhammer 40,000.
As a gaming concept, space marines play a major role in the Warhammer 40,000 miniatures wargame, in which they are genetically altered super-soldiers and the most powerful fighting forces available to the Imperium of Man. In computer games, playing a space marine in action games was popularized by id Software's Doom series, first published in 1993. It is a convenient game back-story as it excuses the presence of the character on a hostile alien world with little support and heavy weaponry. Some critics have suggested it has been overused to the point of being an action game clich+¬.[4]

Game Workshop are the same who chose Mythic Entertrainment to completely ruin a possibly awesome MMO.

They are also the same who deliver some of the most asinine IP bulks of papers.

Karma will really give them back one day.

Next will be the U.S. Marines Corps pursuing games workshops for using the term "Marine" I would imagine.

So as anyone who follows the industry will know, intellectual property battles are getting so ridiculous that we can expect the entire software sector to come to a grinding halt at some point in the next 5 years.

However, this one really made me facepalm. BBC is reporting that Games Workshop is actively pursuing companies who have products about "Space Marines".

That's right... Space Marines. Marines, in space.

Like Dust 514.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21380003

You young whippersnappers may not know but after Star Wars came out, Lucas thought he pretty muched owned 'Space'. Any movie in Space had to contend with Lucas's Lawyers. Battlestar Galactica had loads of issues with them.

I don't think this has anything to do with DUST, though. The contension is over the term 'space marine', not the idea of superdudes in armour. A lot of trademark claims appear riduculous on the face but defending them is a necessity to maintain a a certain image your competitors don't

You young whippersnappers may not know but after Star Wars came out, Lucas thought he pretty muched owned 'Space'. Any movie in Space had to contend with Lucas's Lawyers. Battlestar Galactica had loads of issues with them.

At least according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, descriptive trademarks that use common, everyday words associated with an object are weak and often unenforceable. You probably can't enforce a trademark on a soft drink named "soda" or a yogurt named "creamy."

Games Workshop can take, and its IP rights, and shove them so far up their collective asses that they taste the ink.

[Big load of anger, sorely lacking in the grammar department].

Space - Cannot trademarked

Marine - Cannot be trademarked

Space Marine cannot be trademarked.

I'm sorry, but just because you were bad at the game doesn't mean it was purposefully biased against you. Any army can be led to success if the general is good; if they're awful, then their record will reflect that. Please don't spout eye-offending butthurt just because you sucked.



Really? What about "Death Star"?

Death - Cannot be trademarked

Star - Cannot be trademarked

Death Star - "HERPDERP everyone steal Lucas' idea, 'cause you can't trademark the word "death" or "star"!"

Really? What about "Death Star"?

This reminds of the sue happy era that happened at TSR (former maker of the Dungeons and Dragons line) in the late 80's early 90's. The company changed ownership and decided to get crazy suing fans of the game for releasing ANY fan based material even loosely based on the game.

Then they got sued by the Tolkien estate for lifting some of their IP for one of their expansions and that pretty much shut them up for a while.

I could understand if the author had marketed her book as being about the GW brand space marines, or based in that world, or used more of their terminology - trademarks are intended to protect again brand dilution or confusion among consumers. This case clearly has none of those markers, and I doubt seriously that GW will pursue it any further. But that's just my opinion.

(Also, no, not a lawyer, before anyone asks, but I have published a couple of books, so I do have some basic knowledge of IP laws - you have to these days, if you plan to write a book or anything else, just to be able to defend against this kind of stupid).

Well, you can't have it both ways.

Either greed is good, and thus anything Games Workshop has claimed can't be used without their permission, or everything is fair and everything belongs to the people and we're heading into the bright communist future. Take your pick, because you can't have both.

Yup.

It got so bad that the Tolkien estate tried to forbid them to us e the word 'ring'.

In TSR's Magazine (The Dragon) there was a comic strip about this showing TSR's office and people saying things like:

"Would somebody answe the phone...it's metallic circular banding"

"I just got engaged! Come see my engagement metallic circular band!"

This actually happened in late 70's/early 80's. TSR getting sue happy happened about when you said.

"Doctor says I have Tinitis...it's metallic circular banding in the ears"

You get the idea :)

Games Workshop's Warhammer 40k has inspired almost every sci-fi setting for the past 30 or so years now.

Who was first? Aliens 2 or workshop marines?




REFERENCE :D

They are BIG part of that movie.