Bethesda Trademarks ''Dragonborn'' As Well

[News Portal]

Hot on the heels of trademarking 'Fus Ro Dah' comes the news that ZeniMax, Bethesda's parent company, have also picked up the rights to the word 'dragonborn'. The trademark covers "Computer game software for use with computers and video game consoles; downloadable computer game software offered via the internet and wireless devices". The move possibly marks an increased level of aggression in trademark protection from ZeniMax, who recently provided the creator of the Dragon Shout Skyrim map app with a copyright infringement notice as well. Wizards of the Coast are probably fuming.

Source: Fusible

Read full article by GON News

[André Axe'm]

Sounds very dodgy to me.

[DeathMist]

It would have made sense if the DD version didn't exist.

But meh, just coin the word a lot and make it common then they don't own the trademark anymore.

[meji]

There should be some legal clause somewhere where 'Intellectual Property' trademarks cannot be placed on a product that is clearly unoriginal - as is the case with Dragonborn.

Good to see that Zenimax are lawyered up though and suing or threatening to sue whoever they like that dares infringe, appear to infringe or is imagined to infringe on their trademarks. Guess it's profitable. WotC going to get the Zenimax tap soon then I guess.

[PinothyJ]

It is important not to overlook that a Registered Trademark is only valid in the country that a successful claim was made.


There is still time, Australianites (it makes us sound cooler)…

[vcatkiller]

I hope to high heavens they trademark "arrow to the knee" next, and then sue the living daylights out of everybody who has, or is even thinking of making that joke again. Got old real quick.

[InAUGral]

They need to do this so that they can protect themselves and if someone else uses the term 'dragonborn' they will get more money to fund the MMO.

[meji]

I hope to high heavens they trademark "arrow to the knee" next, and then sue the living daylights out of everybody who has, or is even thinking of making that joke again. Got old real quick.

I believe they already tried that, until the junior lawyer handling it took an arrow to the knee.

[Tusker]

There should be some legal clause somewhere where 'Intellectual Property' trademarks cannot be placed on a product that is clearly unoriginal - as is the case with Dragonborn.

There is a concept called 'prior art' which can disallow a trademark if it's not shown to be sufficiently original. The scope of this is "Computer game software for use with computers and video game consoles; downloadable computer game software offered via the internet and wireless devices" though, so there's no overlap between between WotC usage and Zenimax's. For this reason I don't think

WotC going to get the Zenimax tap soon then I guess.

Bit of interesting reading on the subject: http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom/ma ... -9707.html

[PinothyJ]

I hope to high heavens they trademark "arrow to the knee" next, and then sue the living daylights out of everybody who has, or is even thinking of making that joke again. Got old real quick.

There is law protecting parody so that little plan of yours would be a waste of money and resources…

[meji]

Thanks for the link Tusker, that was an interesting read.

I guess this means WoTC is now restricted from mentioning dragonborn in any of their computer games they are involved in, probably including simple incidental character dialogue. I wonder if dragonborn has ever been mentioned in any of theirs before though.

[vcatkiller]

I hope to high heavens they trademark "arrow to the knee" next, and then sue the living daylights out of everybody who has, or is even thinking of making that joke again. Got old real quick.

There is law protecting parody so that little plan of yours would be a waste of money and resources…

Killjoy. Fine, I'll just use the money to hire cyborg ninja assassins to jump through the internets and cut them instead...

[FryzieDelta]

I'm trademarking the term "GONites". You're all being sued.

[Lumen Melano]

I'm trademarking the term "GONites". You're all being sued.

What about The GONies?

[Tusker]

I'm trademarking the term "GONites". You're all being sued.

What about The GONies?

Or all the advertisers on the site - the GONads.