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In the future, all space marines will be Warhammer 40K space marines

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Re: In the future, all space marines will be Warhammer 40K space marines

#111

Post by Argorak »

arkem wrote: post #109
Argorak wrote: post #90

Legally, where does that leave StarCraft, especially the soon to be released Heart of the Swarm (all have units called Space Marines)? If GW don't (and never did) enforce their trademark against Blizzard, do they have any say against a book author that wants to push the topic in front of a court? AFAIK, Blizzard didn't license the term.

I may be wrong but I think that the Starcraft unit is always called 'Marine' and not 'Space Marine'

I actually thought the same and it seems to be true in the english version, but for example not in the german one:

http://eu.battle.net/sc2/de/game/unit/marine

Re: In the future, all space marines will be Warhammer 40K space marines

#112

Post by Zimahl »

Does it have to be 'space marine'? Can he change it to 'galactic' or 'interstallar' or something else that would be less infringing?

I know it's disheartening but this isn't the battle he wants to fight. Someone with deeper pockets will fight it someday. It's enough to spread the word about GW's legal bullying and let us all make our own decisions on whether we want to purchase their products.

Re: In the future, all space marines will be Warhammer 40K space marines

#113

Post by dkersten »

Argorak wrote: post #90

Legally, where does that leave StarCraft, especially the soon to be released Heart of the Swarm (all have units called Space Marines)? If GW don't (and never did) enforce their trademark against Blizzard, do they have any say against a book author that wants to push the topic in front of a court? AFAIK, Blizzard didn't license the term.

And blizzard (nor anyone else) should have to license the term from GW. According to wikipedia:

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)

Re: In the future, all space marines will be Warhammer 40K space marines

#114

Post by ajross »

Retric wrote: post #76
ajross wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As pointed out elsewhere, the grunts in Aliens were not "space marines". Once again: this is a trademark. GW doesn't have a monopoly on the idea of "Sci-Fi Marines". They have a trademark on the specific term "Space Marine" as used within their realms of business. That includes fiction, so the linked post was infringing. Sorry, but it was.

Sorry, but they did use "space marines" EX: "ALIENS SPACE MARINE LT.RIPLEY" http://www.amazon.com/ALIENS-SPACE-MARINE-LT-RIPLEY/dp/B0009...

Arrgh. AGAIN: it's not a patent! "Prior art" proves nothing. If this figure's manufacturer was not a going business venture in 1987 (or whenever GW filed that trademark) then GW was entirely within their rights to file such a trademark.

And even if this was 100% contemporaneous, the party with standing to challenge that trademark would be the toy company, and not the linked post. The remedy would be to immunize the toy company from GW, or perhaps to award them damages due to GW's mark causing loss of sales.

Re: In the future, all space marines will be Warhammer 40K space marines

#115

Post by Argorak »

dkersten wrote: post #113
Argorak wrote: post #90

Legally, where does that leave StarCraft, especially the soon to be released Heart of the Swarm (all have units called Space Marines)? If GW don't (and never did) enforce their trademark against Blizzard, do they have any say against a book author that wants to push the topic in front of a court? AFAIK, Blizzard didn't license the term.

And blizzard (nor anyone else) should have to license the term from GW. According to wikipedia: 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)

There is no need for lack of prior art in trademark law, as multiple people have stated in this thread.

Re: In the future, all space marines will be Warhammer 40K space marines

#116

Post by hartror »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #107

Games Workshop must be scared shitless of 3d printing. Their rulebooks have been passed around on torrent sites and IRC networks for years but I assumed they never really gave a shit because the models are where the cash is.

Yeah they're pretty boned. They'd be mad not to accept the inevitable embrace the tech and re-gear their business model around that.

Re: In the future, all space marines will be Warhammer 40K space marines

#117

Post by jlgreco »

ajross wrote: post #114
Retric wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but they did use "space marines" EX: "ALIENS SPACE MARINE LT.RIPLEY" http://www.amazon.com/ALIENS-SPACE-MARINE-LT-RIPLEY/dp/B0009...

Arrgh. AGAIN: it's not a patent! "Prior art" proves nothing. If this figure's manufacturer was not a going business venture in 1987 (or whenever GW filed that trademark) then GW was entirely within their rights to file such a trademark. And even if this was 100% contemporaneous, the party with standing to challenge that trademark would be the toy company, and not the linked post. The remedy would be to immunize the t…

He's not claiming that their trademark is invalid because of "prior art", he is saying that they should not have a trademark on the term in the same way that Tropicana should not be permitted to have a trademark on "orange juice".

That is to say, "space marine" and "orange juice" are both clearly descriptive marks. That "space marine" is a descriptive mark is evidenced by it's long history of usage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_distinctiveness

Re: In the future, all space marines will be Warhammer 40K space marines

#118

Post by Natsu »

Argorak wrote: post #103
wisty wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starcraft rips off both WH40k and Aliens, but I think it rips of Aliens more. Plus, Aliens was released 1 year before WH40k, so it has precedence. And Aliens ripped off Starship Troopers (the book), and Starship Troopers (the movie) rips off Aliens. It's complicated. WH original and Warcaft are both simpler - they both rip off LOTR.

Which, in terms of trademark, is very irrelevant :).

This is a weak trademark, it has no secondary meaning that I can discern. You have marines. They're in space. Thus, "space marines." That would seem to fall under the weaker classes of trademark protection[1] and even though I have long known about Warhammer 40K, the words "space marines" do not make me (or most other people I know) think of Warhammer 40K. Personally, that term makes me think of the Aliens movie and Starcraft. They're nowhere near as famous.

Of course, the problem here is that they have more lawyers and wherewithal to contest this than most. Your average person does not have the resources to make a federal case out of this and their lawyers have a perverse incentive to be assholes when trying to prop up a weak trademark claim.

[1] http://www.bitlaw.com/trademark/degrees.html

Re: In the future, all space marines will be Warhammer 40K space marines

#119

Post by samspot »

eliasmacpherson wrote: post #61
drakeandrews wrote: post #14

I knew this was going to happen some day. Games Workshop is essentially two separate companies, the raving legal department/copyright trolls (A couple of years ago they regularly put full page colour adverts in all the British wargaming magazines warning that they would enforce their IP with the full power afforded to them by the law, it was generally considered a bad joke by most.) and the (for a lack of a better te…

About the favouring those with deeper wallets: there's a great history of players making their own miniatures. I think provided they are reasonably near the dimensions of the 'original' piece - the homemade pieces are accepted and encouraged, allowing those without the financial means to use their own.

My Battletech set even comes with cardboard mechs, made to be replaced later with metal. I always thought that was pretty neat.

Re: In the future, all space marines will be Warhammer 40K space marines

#120

Post by anigbrowl »

bunderbunder wrote: post #8

According to Wikipedia[1], the first use of the term 'space marine' in literature was the 1932 short story Captain Brink of the Space Marines by Bob Olsen. That's a full 43 years before Games Workshop was founded, and 55 years before Warhammer 40K was introduced. And the prior usage of the term and concept kept coming strong throughout the intervening half-century. 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_marine

That would be relevant in a patent case, but not to trademarks, which do not depend on prior use but on when a trade mark first enters the stream of commerce.

I've said it before in other contexts: GW is not really being a villain here, they're just making a show of defending their trademark. If they don't, someone else could start using the mark and then say 'well you didn't defend it when those people were (arguably) infringing on it, so I assumed you had abandoned the mark,' and get away with it. If you're a trademark owner, you have to go through the motions of defending your mark against all possible infringers - a use-it-or-lose-it situation, as it were.

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