- Status
Joseph Merrick
Member
right in the holeFoob said:
2 Minutes Turkish
Banned
just asking, but is it bannable to wish death upon this guy?
I'm just asking. In case anyone here does wish death upon him.
I'm just asking. In case anyone here does wish death upon him.
2 Minutes Turkish
Banned
Speevy said:
So if Papazian commits suicide over the stress of this issue, does that count?
What about Langdell raping Mobigames?
Do these fall under the banner of wishing death upon someone who has murdered or raped?
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
Well, this should be interesting.
Roll on 27th October when Langdell's response to the petition is due - mind you, from checking published UK cases it looks like he is not in the habit of adhering to deadlines.
EA's petition is a pretty tedious read, but seems soundly based on the three grounds of abandonment, invalid gross assignment and fraudulent applications, which look to cover the ground fairly well.
In addition, there appears to be a very vicious legal twist in the evidence (but not expressly in the petition) which, if they spot it, Langdell's legal advisers should more or less completely panic at. However, fun though it might be, I won't give them the satisfaction of telling them here what it is.
Good on you EA!
Roll on 27th October when Langdell's response to the petition is due - mind you, from checking published UK cases it looks like he is not in the habit of adhering to deadlines.
EA's petition is a pretty tedious read, but seems soundly based on the three grounds of abandonment, invalid gross assignment and fraudulent applications, which look to cover the ground fairly well.
In addition, there appears to be a very vicious legal twist in the evidence (but not expressly in the petition) which, if they spot it, Langdell's legal advisers should more or less completely panic at. However, fun though it might be, I won't give them the satisfaction of telling them here what it is.
Good on you EA!
Remember how Sony sued importers like Lik-Sang for breach of trademark for shipping PSPs to Europe ahead of the EU launch? They sued under breach of copyright or trademark, I believe.
I wonder if these companies could similarly sue Langdell for claiming to be a Wii/PS3/360 dev or publisher on his website (when he isnt), and for the use of their logos on the mockups of his fake EDGE magazine covers.
I wonder if these companies could similarly sue Langdell for claiming to be a Wii/PS3/360 dev or publisher on his website (when he isnt), and for the use of their logos on the mockups of his fake EDGE magazine covers.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
RandomVince said:
The trouble with suing for damages is you have to show you were caused actual harm, and the trouble with suing Edge Games or whatever their name is is that their market presence being zero (or near as makes no difference) means they don't do any trading that would actually harm anyone.
That's why all of this stuff is taking place on the battlefield of petitioning/objecting to trademark registrations and threats of court action but nothing that comes to reality.
mrkgoo said:
With Edge magazine perhaps, but certainly not with Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft whose logos and/or names he uses in assertions to be a publisher for them. And at the least, if he is using their names on fake magazines it isnt exactly good press for them given his reputation for being a cockbag.
i had no idea who this Tim Langdell dude was.... so i google imaged him and behold some of the treasures i found!
and also this somewhat unsavoury version http://www.team-captin.com/art/Tim_Anal_Edge.gif
so at a glance im guessing hes not well liked:lol
and also this somewhat unsavoury version http://www.team-captin.com/art/Tim_Anal_Edge.gif
so at a glance im guessing hes not well liked:lol
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
RandomVince said:
There are all sorts of circumstances that could give rise to a cause of action. What you mention is one of them - if a developer was led into an agreement by a misrepresentation and that caused him loss. But lying on its own isn't against the law.
I am a Wii developer.
That's a lie of course, but it doesn't harm anyone and no-one can sue me for it. Of course if I'm found out (damn, you have found me out already!) I will look a right prat - but that isn't against the law either.
But if I deceptively use that claim to obtain goods, services, contracts, tickets to E3 and so on - or trademark registrations, there will probably be grounds to sue me - it varies a bit depending where you are in the world, but that's it in essence.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
RandomVince said:Thanks phisheep. Thats pretty much what I understood to be the case, but not being trained in law I lack the ability to put it into writing.
Any time.
Just to put it into the current context - if EA wins this case all they'll have done is get the trademarks cancelled, but it would probably give Mobigames grounds to sue Edge because they will be able to demonstrate actual harm.
phisheep said:
It also gives anyone else who has dealt with him grounds to take legal action also.
But it's the forging of evidence to support his trademark claims that are likely to land him in the hottest water. That is a felony on it's own. The fact he's then used his wrongly awarded trademarks to then enter licensing deals with other companies is extortion, also illegal. Then you have the final fact that he's used this falsified evidence in the courts and... well, you wouldn't want to be Tim Langdell right now.
Castor Krieg
Banned
How were the trademarks granted? They need to be for specific things used in specific context. Why did Mobigames pull off EDGE, they never made any attempt to picture their game as associated with something made by Langdell.
This all looks to me like nobody reads the documents anymore - everyone who got the letter from Langdell should've just checked his trademark fillings and sent a big F U in reply. The guy was enabled by all the companies who did nothing, instead gave in to his outrageous demands without checking basic facts:
1. YOU CANNOT TRADEMARK A WORD
2. WHEN IN DOUBT, SEE 1
This all looks to me like nobody reads the documents anymore - everyone who got the letter from Langdell should've just checked his trademark fillings and sent a big F U in reply. The guy was enabled by all the companies who did nothing, instead gave in to his outrageous demands without checking basic facts:
1. YOU CANNOT TRADEMARK A WORD
2. WHEN IN DOUBT, SEE 1
Bitmap Frogs
Mr. Community
Castor Krieg said:
These are all corporations that hire professional lawyers, so yeah someone does read the documents.
My uncle used to work on the cosmetics sector and he always laughed at the fact absolutely everything was trademarked and they had to pay royalties on every product they offered unless they managed to come up with something that marketing was ok with and wasn't previously trademarked.
Castor Krieg said:
You can trademark a word or a phrase across a category or categories of products and services. My understanding is Landell has Edge covered for the computer games category and beyond.
Mobigames EDGE doesn't need to try to associate their game with anything made by Langdell to infringe. By creating a game using a trademark owned by him, they unknowingly infringed the mark.
Langdell appears to have been within his legal rights to send a cease and desist to Mobigames (false filing notwithstanding). How he dealt with the issue overall was more where the problem has been.
Yes, you can.
Castor Krieg
Banned
And that, Sir, is why U.S. Patent system fails hard.Mario said:
Chittagong
Gold Member
Mario said:
That is of course assuming that he had originally grounds to file the trademark - then his C&D would have been business as usual. From what we have seen, however, is that he hasn't had any business justification for the trademarks and has in fact forged "evidence" of his use of the trademark - see fake magazine cover, fake games on website etc. Ironically, lying to court about stuff like that is a bigger felony than using someone's trademark.
Mario said:
It is. If you can't trademark a word, then the whole thing falls on it's ass.
The real failure here was that so many people just took the cheap and easy way out of dealing with Langdell. Luckily, Internet detectives kinda did all the expensive work for EA's lawyers for free so we're finally going to get a result.
Ardorx said:
IANAL...
You would have to trademark it and use it commercially across product and service categories you wanted to block companies from using it in (which costs money for each category). That wouldn't stop them from being able to use it as such, but would allow you to sue if they did use it and you could demonstrate commercial loss (they might come to you for a license first, but more likely would choose another name if they knew of your mark). Indeed, if someone else it using it in a category you have protected, you HAVE to defend it otherwise risk losing the trademark.
It would be a lot easier and cheaper to speculate/squat on domain names.
MomoPufflet
Member
dalyr95 said:
I had almost the same reaction reading this as I did watching the documentary Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father in so much as it made me briefly contemplate committing murder. Obviously the subject of Dear Zachary is exponentially more serious, but they both serve as a reminder that there exists true fucking evil in the world. Consummate, sociopathic evil that will stop at nothing until it is extinguished outright.
Burai said:
Trademarking a word is fine, especially is it is partly made up (Activision for example), or a series of words in a particular order. The whole concept of trademark functions upon people's ability to identify with that phrase or word.
But...
Trademarking a single commonly used word goes into a very DARK gray area. As we have seen with this case, it caters itself to laziness and legal bullying for personal profit. Just looking at this case objectively you can see the whole system failing miserably, and easily taken advantage of.
The trademark law should be reformed to a certain extent as it relates to single commonly words in the language, to avoid all this bullshit.
charlequin
Banned
Mario said:
I certainly wouldn't say "fine," but of the three categories rolled together into "intellectual property," trademarks are the least problematic.
Aquavelvaman said:
Hahaha I just looked up their website for the first time. I have a feeling that this is the entirety of the content that has been made for the game "Mirrors" by "Edge". I hate guys like this.
Someone surely has the trademark on "amazed" or "prepare."
oracrest said:
Not at all.
What happened here was a combination of the trademark office not checking the evidence Langdell was submitting well enough and his victims not verifying this publicly available information before caving in to him or being dragged through court.
Trademarking a word is fine. You just have to be using it. It's how Marvel can own... Well, Marvel and force Terry Bolea to pay a licence fee to use the word Hulk in conjunction with Hogan. It can also lead to massive court battles between a record company and a computer manufacturer who are both named after fruit.
Langdell was merely pretending to use the word Edge. But that could happen with any word or combination of words, real or otherwise.
TitaniumGroceries
Banned
So we can wish death upon the innocent dead?Speevy said:
one thing that's not really covered in this thread by the "pro-trademark" folks is that for a trademark to stand, not only do you have to actively defend it BUT you have to actively APPLY it also. You can't just squat the trademark, and THAT'S really where he is in trouble. His active application of the trademark has almost SOLELY been fraudulent and fabricated for the better part of 20 years.
And really that was his downfall in any of this. Had he produced games (actually fucking produced them) under the edge name.. had he actually produced anything as a company under the edge trademark.. he would actually have a case. But because he has built his sole business around enforcing the trademark and not actually applying it to anything, he's fucked. I can't make a company called "Shooter Inc", trademark the word shooter, and then make all of my revenue from suing people who use the word shooter. There HAS TO BE application there. And for him to actually CLAIM application falsely.... umm... illegal much????
Oh well... I agree with others that people have a right (no, an obligation) to defend their trademarks... but CLEARLY this was trademark squatting and virtually extortion. I have to agree with the ones hoping for him to be penniless and imprisoned. The least he deserves the the number of developers he's screwed over and likely tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars he's cost companies in fighting this shenanigans.
edit - there is one thing that strikes me as curious in all of this... so we do know for a fact that some companies did in fact pay him for the use of Edge... going on what I am saying here, does that really count as application? Or to make the question more precise, by threatening legal action, which he probably doesn't really have, to force them into licensing the name from him, is that valid? To me that actually seems like extortion to the letter. Akin to offering protection to a mom and pop store for money, but the only thing you are really protecting them from is you if they decided not to pay the money.
And really that was his downfall in any of this. Had he produced games (actually fucking produced them) under the edge name.. had he actually produced anything as a company under the edge trademark.. he would actually have a case. But because he has built his sole business around enforcing the trademark and not actually applying it to anything, he's fucked. I can't make a company called "Shooter Inc", trademark the word shooter, and then make all of my revenue from suing people who use the word shooter. There HAS TO BE application there. And for him to actually CLAIM application falsely.... umm... illegal much????
Oh well... I agree with others that people have a right (no, an obligation) to defend their trademarks... but CLEARLY this was trademark squatting and virtually extortion. I have to agree with the ones hoping for him to be penniless and imprisoned. The least he deserves the the number of developers he's screwed over and likely tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars he's cost companies in fighting this shenanigans.
edit - there is one thing that strikes me as curious in all of this... so we do know for a fact that some companies did in fact pay him for the use of Edge... going on what I am saying here, does that really count as application? Or to make the question more precise, by threatening legal action, which he probably doesn't really have, to force them into licensing the name from him, is that valid? To me that actually seems like extortion to the letter. Akin to offering protection to a mom and pop store for money, but the only thing you are really protecting them from is you if they decided not to pay the money.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
Probably already posted, but...
http://www.tigsource.com/pages/edge-games
The fuck. I don't know how this guy managed to get with his bullshit so many years. HOLY SHIT.
This seriously made me lol and facepalm at the same time.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=188616
http://www.prlog.org/10028816-iba-developed-computer-game-released.html
http://www.ibacz.eu/IBA-Developed-Computer-Game
http://www.tigsource.com/pages/edge-games
The fuck. I don't know how this guy managed to get with his bullshit so many years. HOLY SHIT.
This seriously made me lol and facepalm at the same time.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=188616
http://www.prlog.org/10028816-iba-developed-computer-game-released.html
http://www.ibacz.eu/IBA-Developed-Computer-Game
mentalfloss
Banned
How the fuck.. how is this real? How does the law not employ common sense in these cases and do what's right? You can't rely on precedent for everything.
I really hope this guy gets the worst possible penalty anyone can get for doing this for so long. Goddamn.. knock 'em out the box Luke, knock 'em out.
I really hope this guy gets the worst possible penalty anyone can get for doing this for so long. Goddamn.. knock 'em out the box Luke, knock 'em out.
SolidSnakex
Member
Relaxed Muscle said:
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