This. Took the words right out of my mouth.

It's more than just their lawyers. Bethesda are extremely protective of their public image, and this can be seen in everything from how they handle their IP, how they market their games, their public relations, who they give interviews and content exclusives to on the journalism side of things, and even how they moderate their forums. I can't say I agree with it, but it seems much more like a corporate philosophy than just "asshole lawyers" to me.

Bathsheba needs to protect their trademarks, granted. But they could have sanctioned the Mojang game name for a $1 perpetual license.



Stupid company is stupid.

I knew I was holding out on pre-ordering Skyrim for a reason. I was on the fence with that game anyways, now I'll just have to spend my money on the 10 other AAA games coming out in the same holiday window. Rage (sadly a cog in the Zenimax wheel now), Batman, Battlefield, oh man the list goes on.

@Ben - Don't forget about Dark Souls :D

What was the "Edge" nonsense?

Here's some info Brandon: http://chaosedge.wordpress.com/ http://www.tigsource.com/2009/05/29/tim-langdell-the-edge-of-insanity/



Google "Tim Langdell" if you want to know more. Basically a trademark troll threatened to sue an indie developer for using the word "Edge" and got Apple to take their app off the iPhone app store. This lead to a large amount of public awareness about this man and other shady actions he has taken, and cost him his place as a board member for the IGDA (how he got there in the first place is a disappointing mystery).

How about Mojang changes the name to "Mojang Loves Bethesda." Everyone will know the douchebags aren't really getting any love, and the name won't use the single word that Bethesda seems to think they can trademark.

Protecting their public image? This just knocked my opinion of them down quite a bit... Why not hold a press conference and simply state, "We think our fans are too stupid to recognize our game so we are going to spell it for you stupid fans. S-K-Y-R-I-M. Have a nice day we love your contribution!"



Give me a break... Nothing to see here.

Exactly. The only thing to be gained from this is Bethesda paying thousands if not millions of dollars in lawyer fees and getting nothing but a bunch of negative publicity in return.

That's a really good point. Bethesda hasn't come out to the community and said, "Hey, we're doing this for x, y, and z reasonable reasons." Most likely because they do NOT have a reasonable reason.

This is exactly how I feel. I love Bethesda's games and was looking forward to Skyrim, now I can't in good conscience support this company. It is just obvious that no one is going to confuse "The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim" which is marketed as "Skyrim" with "Scrolls". All it comes down to is a frightening trend where companies try to get away with as much as they can, using the legal system to unjustly profit themselves instead of protect themselves. I think that Bethesda are doing something wrong, and I think I am going to let them know with my wallet and their email contact.

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You will stop using our protected word "the" in your comments, or we'll obtain an injunction against its use.

I disagree and believe you shouldn't give in to lawyers like these.

Yes, Bethesda (and any company) should protect their brand. But Beshtesda's brand is "The Elder Scrolls". The name (which, as far as I know, has been prominently displayed *in its entirety* in every ES game) contains three words, although you could take out "The" and it would still be recognisable. Without "Elder", the name would be totally different.



Consider, say, "Another World" and "Two Worlds". They both have the name "World" in them but nobody confuses them. Or "Batman: Arkham Asylum" and "Asylum", or "The Darkness" and "Heart of Darkness" (a game which came out in 1998). Nobody confuses these titles because people understand that titles aren't necessarily linked even if they contain the same words. That's what words DO.

"That being said if its just a matter of changing the name of Mojang's new game, I think that might be the best case instead of getting into long lawsuits with giant corporate lawyers."



This is not a good attitude :(. Corporations depend on this sort of self-first thinking to get away with this crap. If a company as large as Mojang backs down not because they feel they did something wrong, but because "it would be easier than fighting back", that is only going to weaken the resolve of indie developers and strengthen the courage of the more bully-like publisher/developer conglomerations (of which I did not think Zenimax/Bethesda belonged until now...).

Maybe we should make a game called "Scrolls for the Elder Wind of the Morrow" and make it about a Chinese dragon that travels to Japan to capture runaway egg rolls that look like scrolls. LOL Name the dragon Notch and have it "accidentally" knock over a Bethesda sign while flying away in the ending scene. Of course it would have to be a mock Bethesda scene, and not actually use any of their words... I guess we will have to write the sign in Arabic or Tagalog to ensure they cannot sue us for using their words... write the main title in Hiragana and Lawsuit avoided... oh, wait, then no one would be able to read our game. OH! So THAT is the point of the lawsuit! Bethesda feels threatened!

Maybe we should make a game called "Scrolls for the Elder Wind of the Morrow" and make it about a Chinese dragon that travels to Japan to capture runaway egg rolls that look like scrolls. LOL Name the dragon Notch and have it "accidentally" knock over a Bethesda sign while flying away in the ending scene. Of course it would have to be a mock Bethesda scene, and not actually use any of their words... I guess we will have to write the sign in Arabic or Tagalog to ensure they cannot sue us for using their words... write the main title in Hiragana and Lawsuit avoided... oh, wait, then no one would be able to read our game. OH! So THAT is the point of the lawsuit! Bethesda feels threatened!

ZeniMax is a parent company. It owns both Bethesda Game Studios, the developer, and Bethesda Softworks, the publisher. Traditionally this kind of lawsuit would come from the publisher. So (in the absence of evidence otherwise) saying "Bethesda is filing the case" is wholly accurate. So is saying "ZeniMax is filing the case."

Any clarifying statements from Bethesda would help their image. Still, they agreed to be published under Zenimax. Whether it is Bethesda in its entirety, Zenimax, the publishing branch of Bethesda, Bethesda's lawyers, Zenimax's lawyers, or the Executive Vice President of Stuff's hyper-intelligent talking pet cat, the whole organization was responsible for curtailing this before it got this far (hell, before Notch received his first C&D). To alleviate responsibility in the slightest is to strengthen the sense of dispersion of responsibility: the "evil publisher" is the one to blame, not the "innocent developer". So we still buy the game to support the "innocent developer", inescapably supporting the "evil publisher" and further encouraging this type of behavior. It is sad, but we have to allow for "civilian casualties" in situations like this if this industry is ever going to mature beyond its current model. Unfortunately this lets publishers use developers and other low level workers as meat shields, but the long-term gains of developer pride, unity, and respect for other developers (suing someone for using a single word in the multi-word subtitle of your product is not respect) far outweigh the civilian casualties. Of course, any way to punish Zenimax without punishing Bethesda is worth talking about (buy the game used and snail mail some cash to Bethesda? *shrug*)

Except, millions of gamers aren't going to give two craps. They will go to GameStop, see the pretty pictures, and buy it anyway. Sony's been pulling crappy stunts for decades, and people still buy their products. Other than a few outraged people, Bethesda's sales will be unaffected.

Yes... I have seen people commenting, for example, how this is an invalid use of copyright law. Which would be true... except that this is a trademark issue and has nothing to do with copyrights.



(Copyright is suppose to be about artistic ownership but Trademark is supposed to be about truth in advertising.)



As best I understand it: if Mojang is allowed to trademark "Scrolls" then "The Elder Scrolls" would be a violation of Mojang's trademark. You cannot own a trademark if someone else owns it, and Mojang is trying to claim exclusive use of the word "Scrolls" to label his computer game (which would obviously include any sequels).



So... Bethesda (or Zenimax, or whoever) might lose their trademark "The Elder Scrolls" for games they have already published (if Mojang wins), while Mojang might have to come up with a slightly different name for an unreleased game (if Bethesda or whoever wins)? I'm sorry, but I think it's Mojang that's being unreasonable here.



Meanwhile, I suppose it's kind of amusing, reading people's comments on this "copyright issue".

R. Miller, I don't think you are correct in your assumption. Bethesda already owns a trademark for "The Elder Scrolls" which obviously pre-dates this, so they aren't going to be in violation of anything.

Kevin, the issue is "losing trademark". Try googling on that subject.



So, ok, people are making the point that "The Elder Scrolls" and "Scrolls" are different, so Bethesda would obviously still be allowed to use "The Elder Scrolls". But a problem with this line of reasoning is that trademark law is written such that if you do not take someone to court, right away, that constitutes evidence that your trademark is not relevant.



Meanwhile, Bethesda recently lost a court case because they took someone to court seven months too late. And that was a copyright case (where you do not lose your rights until a long time after you are dead) not a trademark case. So there can be other issues, besides the raw structure of trademark, that could also require them to bring this case to court right away.



Anyways, asking Bethesda to not take this case to court seems equivalent to asking them to give up their trademark.

"Meanwhile, Bethesda recently lost a court case because they took someone to court seven months too late. And that was a copyright case (where you do not lose your rights until a long time after you are dead) not a trademark case."



Assuming you are referring to the Fallout MMORPG case, Bethesda DIDN'T lose the case (which is more related to breach of contract than copyright infringement per se). They simply didn't get a temporary restraining order to prevent Interplay from carrying on with the realization of their product, on the grounds (among other things) that they waited too much before asking for such an order. They can still pursue their claim for damages before a court. See here for more info:



http://www.iptrademarkattorney.com/2011/09/copyright-infringement-vid eogame-fall
out-license-video-masthead-bethesda-tro-denied.html



In any case, this is entirely irrelevant with respect to the present case.

Agreed, I know corporate lawyers myself and can vouch that they frankly don't care and often have a full plate with frivolous suits against their clients that don't go as public. Being a lawyer is a day-job like any other and it's the people who pay for their services that are the ones to blame for these actions.

But how does being a jerk make you a hero? Funny, yes. Cheap comedy, yes. Hero?



So.. ok, Notch is, and has been a hero -- but that's for his development of minecraft. But I feel that, in the context of this trademark issue he is being a bully

@Miller I don't claim to be one. So please sheathe tomahawk of your faithful wrath for you will not find me on the warpath.

best just summed up as "WWWWHHHAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!"

Bets on who gets the updated linkedin profile at Bethesda/Zenimax after this?

"Let's say they just shrugged and said, "Eh, it's Notch. Let it go." At that point they have zero (legal) grounds for complaint if some other outfit starts marketing a game as..."The Elder Scrolls.""



I see this as a stretch. I don't think that Bethesda ignoring this would lose them their complete trademark; that's kind of the point, that they have a trademark on "The Elder Scrolls" and not "Scrolls". If what you say is true and letting a company get away with a title that does not infringe on your trademark in any logical way DOES invalidated your trademark, then serious reform needs to occur in trademark law or we will have lawsuits over almost every title that contains a word that another title used.



Yeah, I don't see how this can be good for anyone.

That is not true.



Did TSR/WOTC/Hasbro lose the trademark for Dungeons & Dragons every time a fantasy RPG used Dragon or Dungeon in the title? There are a lot of them, too. Including the recent "Dungeons" which is about as close as case to this as there is.

The argument that Bethesda have to sue Mojang in order to keep their trademark doesn't make any sense to me. The names simply are not close enough to warrant that. If it was "Gears of War" and "Cogs of War", or "The Elder Scrolls" and "The Older Scrolls" fair enough. "The Ancient Scrolls" would be a borderline case, maybe. But "Scrolls"? No way.

It's a game called "Scrolls" with a fantasy setting and the creator is trying to trademark the "Scrolls" part, and I'm assuming all the bells and whistles required for proper trademarking.



The trademarking is the issue, not the name of the game. Bethesda is showing they are actively protecting their trademark from other similar trademark attempts. Personally I think it's close enough to warrant the action, if only to show (because it's required) that they are proactively using and protecting their own trademark.



My 2 cents anyway.

As I've said previously, there happens to be a game called Dungeons & Dragons. Maybe you've heard of it? It was the first RPG and its tropes have infiltrated most of the game industry, beyond just fantasy RPGs.



And yet, there are dozens of games that feature Dungeon or Dragon (in singular or plural form) in the title.



The only legal problems I've heard even remotely related to the names of those is Dragon Quest having to be renamed to Dragon Warrior for a while, because SPI was publishing a pen & paper RPG named DragonQuest.



Also very recently that was a MMORPG called "Rift", which was somewhat similar to the pen & paper RPG Rifts. Despite the similarity and similarity of names, the owner of the P&P game couldn't do anything legally about it.

No, nouns should be free. What should we all quake in fear at "speed", "level up", "realm"



This is fucked and I hope it (like the edge fuckup should have) sets precedent. Z/B has no right to be idiots and I suspect the punishment will be far worse than what ever the courts hand out. Their poor, poor shareholders.

Actually, Chris, you're arguing against Notch. Mojang is the one trying to trademark "Scrolls", and Bethesda is against that.



If you're up in arms about "nouns being free", then you're on the wrong side of argument.



Besides, you actually cannot trademark a common term, you have to trademark a very specific use and feel of the term, normally accompanied by a specific font, color, background, etc.

LOL!! probably, yah.

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thumbs up @ Game Guy. I think companies need to stop feeling entitled to all the profits they can fathom, and likewise entitled to take down any company that steps in the way. Scrolls is not going to harm The Elder Scrolls in any way other than being a better game (if it is), and even then it is a completely different gameplay genre that does not directly compete with TES. There is a difference between defending your trademark from an attempt to confuse consumers (say if someone created The Elder Scrolls: Minecraft) and pushing trademark law as far as you can against an honest use of a word just because you think your success is the only important thing in the world.

I agree with Game Guy; however, this is not primarily about who wins or loses; it is about who has the deepest pockets to justify and sustain the fight. If Mojang fought this - and won; what is the tangible benefit? None, would be my answer. Is the legal expense worth the hassle? No, I don't think so. Especially when you can just change the game's name and move on - chalking it down to experience and remembering to do the proper research in the future in order to avoid this nonsense (brought about by a badly broken and antiquated system).

Derek,



I agree with Mojang and how they are handling this.



Sure they could just change the name and the whole thing would be over, but what would that do for the overall state of Trademark law? Nothing. If they changed the name of their game, they will be bowing out and giving more fuel to trademark trolls. By standing up for themselves, they are sending a message that trademark only applies to the *full name* that was trademarked and not to the individual parts.

Really, trademark trolls?



Comment threads are so hit or miss these days. Half the time you get the good ol' reasonable back and forth with some good insight... the other half you get rash and inflammatory posts by people who haven't even read the article, or researched a root cause.



I'm not picking on you, Ephriam, since you're usually a pretty reasonable guy, but to borrow the "patent troll" terminology and apply it to this case is absurd.



You may agree or disagree with Zenimax on this one, but they are not even close to trolling.

@Ephriam,



I doubt Mojang's case could do anything to the "state of trademark law", if nothing else because Sweden is a civil law country and precedents do not matter that much for subsequent lawsuits.



**



Personally, I'd be inclined to think that they are going with it because Mojang has grown big enough to sustain the costs of legal proceedings (in Europe they are on average lower than in the US, even though I have no specific figures on Sweden), and because even if they lost, the consequences wouldn't be dramatic. Heck, considering the way the news is resonating across the internet, they might have taken the funds out of their marketing budget!



Trademark violation is -generally speaking- based on two conditions that must occur simultaneously: a) the alleged infringer must operate in the same business sector as the claimant and b) there must be a likelihood of confusion of the products involved among the public. I think we can all agree that a) is met, whether b) is met as well will pretty much hinge on the assessment of the court of what is the "public" in this case. As much as my gut feeling as a gamer tells me that such likelihood is zero, from a legal point of view I wouldn't bet on either outcome.

@Mark the phrase "trademark troll" is not some new spinoff of "patent troll", it's been around and has its own legitimacy (just like "patent troll" does). While this case does not hint at Bethesda or Zenimax acting like trademark trolls, I did not interpret Ephriam as claiming that it did; more like claiming that their success could set a precedent beneficial to actual trademark trolls in the future. That said; trolling or not, this suit _is_ unethical and a net loss for everyone due to Zenimax/Bethesda chasing an imaginary infringement (I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that it is due to exaggerated fear and not greed), and I hope they learn their lesson from this predictable and avoidable backlash.



"the other half you get rash and inflammatory posts by people who haven't even read the article, or researched a root cause."



Please don't confuse someone having an opinion you don't like with ignorance (a mistake that I am trying to ween myself off of :] ).



@Luke - I think in this case b) does not hold up because "Scrolls" is a common noun and a common item in video games, so I don't think that people have made or will make a mental bottleneck associating the word with only Bethesda's series. If this lawsuit did not occur, I don't think that anyone except lawyers would look at "Scrolls" and think "man, Bethesda better sue, that's too close to one of the words in the subtitle of their series which they hardly market using the subtitle!". I would be very very surprised if Bethesda gets anything from going to court, but we shall see!

@Jeffrey

It's not common on this site (perhaps because of the lack of articles about trademark issues) and I'd rather it not rear it's ugly head when it's not needed. I don't think it's especially accurate, either, but whatev. I think that in general we tend to throw around a lot of ugly and inflammatory language that serves no one at all in a reasonable discussion. Whether Ephriam is specifically referring to Zenimax in this instance or not doesn't matter, equating a reasonable defense of a trademark with increasing trademark "trolling" doesn't make any sense, in the same manner that a reasonable defense of patents has no bearing on patent trolls. I'd prefer if we stop with the chilling effect of lumping reasonable litigation in with all manner of outrageous abuses of the legal system.



Whether or not one agrees with Zenimax or Mojang is irrelevant, the courts will decide the outcome and most likely nothing earth-shattering will come of it. I think that it is entirely unfair however to put it in the same category as the Edge debacle and link it in any way to trademark "trolling".



As for the other comment, as I mentioned, I was not referring necessarily specifically to Ephriam, I was lamenting on the general increase in knee-jerk responses on this site that are either a) clearly ignorant of any relevant facts or b) intentionally obtuse and inflammatory. What I interpreted as calling this action by Zenimax "trademark trolling" was leaning provocatively in that direction.



We can all get caught up in a heated discussion, that's natural and happens not infrequently. That's not really an issue for me, what I've perceived as a marked increase in the rush to judgement without any real basis in facts directly presented in an article (or easily Googled) is what gets my goat, so to speak. Perhaps I'm mistaken, I dunno, it's just what I've picked up over the last couple of years.

@Jeffrey

Actually, "trademark troll" IS a misnomer if you intend it as the trademark equivalent of "patent troll". "Patent trolls" are individuals or companies that acquire patents for the sole purpose of litigation; they are not interested in practicing the patented invention. Trademarks, on the other hand, must be asserted by USING them (i.e having products/services branded that way), otherwise they lapse; as a consequence of that, you cannot "troll" someone with a trademark. If a company policy is asserting aggressively their IP, you may consider them assholes, but they are not trolls.



""Scrolls" is a common noun and a common item in video games"

that has nothing to do with "likelihood of confusion". The question the judge will have to answer will be whether the public is likely ("likely", not "will for sure") to buy Mojang's game thinking that it is a Bethesda product.

"equating a reasonable defense of a trademark with increasing trademark "trolling" doesn't make any sense"



Some of us (myself included) are of the opinion that this is not a reasonable defense of a trademark. The fear is that if this case wins for Bethesda, then it sets a precedent for other companies to start enforcing multi-word trademarks on single words, minimizing the word-space from which we can select meaningful titles (you also have to look at the title as a part of the game that you are trying to perfect for the user, not just a marketing/legal phenomenon, so such uncalled for limitations can only hurt the creative process) and giving already large publishers a huge portfolio which they can use against independent developers under the excuse that if they don't, they'll lose their (admittedly legitimate) full trademark. Of course I can't speak for Ephriam, but that is how I interpreted his sentiment, and it is with this interpretation that I fully agree.



"as a consequence of that, you cannot "troll" someone with a trademark."



That is precisely what Tim Langdell did. He was an NPE who faked practicing entity status with fake games on his website and ripped art from other games and even went as far as to hand the judge a disk with a document claimed to be from the early nineties that experts found was created with a later version of Word.



"""Scrolls" is a common noun and a common item in video games"

that has nothing to do with "likelihood of confusion"."



How common a word is has a lot to do with "likelihood of confusion", particularly how common it is in its market. For example, people would be a lot more likely to assume that Bethesda made a game called "Skyrim" (a fictional region in their universe, and made up word) than "Scrolls" (an item common to many, many games that came out before Arena). Heck I would even see where they were coming from if they went after a game called "Oblivion", even though that is a common noun.

@ Jeffrey

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one, then. I am astounded that anyone can find Zenimax's actions as unreasonable in light of current trademark law. Whether this trademarking of "Scrolls" infringes on their trademark enough for courts to take up action is definitely up for debate. Whatev, different strokes and all that.



@ Everyone

With so many people throwing around the whole "Edge" incident I'm surprised more of you aren't upset that Mojang is trying to trademark such a generic term as "Scrolls". If they're allowed the trademark this gives them pretty vast opportunity to pursue their own future "trademark trolling". Any future game name containing the word "Scroll" or "Scrolls" is right in their wheelhouse. Personally I find that even more disturbing than Zenimax actively attempting to defend their trademark.



I suppose that Mojang isn't large and evil enough for us to question their potentially destructive actions. One day maybe they'll be big enough to rage against.

@Jeffrey

I don't have time right now to look up the specifcs of the Edge case but taking for the sake of the argument your statement at face value, the practicing status in that case would be obtained through fraud, which is a separate issue from trademark law allowing "trolling" as such. On the other side, "trolling" is a perfectly legal practice in the patent world (even if some legislations are starting to pose limitations to prevent that), because patents do not need to be practiced to be valid. Besides terminology issues, Bethesda cannot be considered a "troll" no matter what definition you follow.



As for the "likelihood of confusion", I will (for the last time), repeat the concept: the confusion has to occur between two products or services, it has nothing to do with the semantics of the words as such (it could have been a conflict between "the elders' scowls" and "scowls", which are not mainstream game items, and the situation would have been the same). The fact is, the two companies have products in or about to hit the market, in the same business sector, with similar names. One of these companies owns an asserted trademark. Is mistaking the product of the second company as something made by the company owning the trademark likely? YOU say no, I personally say no, but the judge must make a determination thinking about the public at large. The case is not blatantly unfounded on general principles, and the outcome will depend on the judge's assessment of the situation, the arguments of the parties, and the exact wording of the Swedish law, which I do not know.

Note that Bethesda does not necessarily have to prevent Mojang from having a trademark on "Scrolls" to "win" this case, for their purposes. For example, if they can get the court to issue a statement that the trademarks do not and cannot conflict, that gives them immunity to trademark weakening (which is what they need here).



The thing is, though: they need to deal with these issues now and not later (before Mojang develops a better version of Minecraft, with more robust handling of geometry, for example).



They have to describe their business label now, and get Mojang to describe their business label now. And it's only for issues where they and Mojang have disputes about what these labels mean where the court needs to rule.

They are thinking that if they don't defend their trademark from encroaching trademark attempts then it erodes their ability to defend from future trademarks that further encroach.



Besides, y'all are blowing this "PR disaster" way out of proportion. A vast majority of gamers don't even know this is going on, and a vast majority of those that do know don't care. Skyrim might lose a few thousand sales at most, but that's a drop in the bucket compared to letting your trademark defense slip.