Notch: challenging Bethesda to Quake 3 duel 'might have been a poor choice'

@SpecBlank

Chances are good he forgot bethesda bought ID

@OrangeGamer

It's not like the new game is called Old Scrolls: Forgotten or Long Time Has Passed Scrolls: Nothingbutrim. I mean, Scrolls is basically a card game and nothing like the Elder Scrolls series. The fact that it's even brought up by Bethesda is stupid. They should spend their time making sure Skyrim doesn't freeze up because I looked a waterfall while trying to inventory rat meat at the same time.

@Kimchi Kommando




. . . seriously, Oblivion on the PC froze every 30 min and Fallout on the PS3 don't get me started. And don't hand me that "It's a big game, you can't catch all the bugs crap." They wouldn't have gotten away with this 10 years ago, they use updates like a crutch. . . my bad, rant over.

@OrangeGamer What do you mean hope? We already KNOW the dude is a bro, half of each update is his polished version of the community's favorite mods that he worked with the creator to make, his modding API is free to use to anyone, and he's a twitter person with lots of friends. If he got the name Scrolls trademarked not a soul in the world would ever see any problem from him besides a 5 minute phone call saying "So you're using Scrolls as your name? Ah-ha. Ok, have fun with that."

@Kimchi Kommando

Not that stupid actually. "Scrolls" is a card-based game, yes, but it also has a Fantasy RPG-ish theme. It clearly bears some similarities to the Elder Scrolls in design (at least based upon available art and the game's website). And with the way trademark law works, Bethesda has to defend their trademark from any potential threats or risk losing it later on.

If Bethesda and Mojang actually do go to court though, I'd give 75% odds that Bethesda would win if they have a single lawyer worth a damn. Heck, Tim Langdell was successful for a while, and he didn't even have a game released, much less an entire series (or even a real basis of similarities for that matter).

I don't understand why Notch doesn't just change the name of the game, "Scrolls" is a terrible name anyway. If he had gone with "Summoner's Scrolls" or something else, he could have easily avoided this whole thing.

@Darkelfguy

Summoner's Scrolls would possibly cause issues with the card game Summoner Wars, but the creator of that is an awesome guy so maybe not.

@Darkelfguy

By your same logic, Square Enix should be able to make a copyright claim on any game that has the word Fantasy in the title because they own the Final Fantasy franchise. Yet plenty of games come out with the word Fantasy in the title and Square Enix doesn't care. Why? Because it's just one damn word that their game only uses as part of the full title! That about sums up my feelings on the Scrolls matter.

@RogueJedi86

Your logic is EXTREMELY flawed, and not just because this has nothing to do with copyrights (copyrights are not the same as trademarks!). You're making two big assumptions: 1) That Square Enix hasn't been involved in previous trademark disputes and 2) That the scenario you present is at all similar to the current dispute between Bethesda and Mojang.

First of all, it should be noted that the vast majority of companies out there aren't going to post their trademark disputes on Twitter (what Notch did isn't just abnormal, it's downright ridiculous). In fact, most of the time trademark disputes are settled completely out of the public eye, you only really hear about them in extreme circumstances (Tim Langdell for instance). Given how large Square Enix is, they've no doubt been involved in numerous trademark disputes, a few of which no doubt involved similar RPG-like games using 'Fantasy' in their trademark in such a fashion that there could be cause for confusion. Ultimately, you can't say Square Enix hasn't been involved in similar trademark disputes because YOU don't know.

Secondly, this isn't at all the same as Square Enix's trademarks on the "Final Fantasy" games in the first place. Notch is trademarking ONE WORD, "Scrolls", and not just using it as part of the trademark. For this to be at all similar to the scenario you propose, there would need to be a game with the "Fantasy" trademark. And there's not one game out there that has "Fantasy" trademarked, not a single one (and yes I checked, took about 10 minutes to search through the trademark database and my search came up empty). If Notch had trademarked a full title, like "Scrolls: The Card Game" there wouldn't be any sort of legal dispute between Bethesda and Mojang at all.

Furthermore, it should be pointed out that a game title doesn't have to be trademarked. The vast majority of indie games, in fact, are not trademarked at all. You can make a game and call it whatever you want, release it to the public without a trademark, and it's still perfectly legal. Companies make trademarks in order to protect their brands and franchises but they are not required, and in fact going through the process of registering a trademark means that you'll have to enforce it vigorously or lose it all together.

@Dick Socrates

I've done that countless times

@Mmmmz

I've never heard anyone use "Elder Scrolls", its only ever been the subtitle

@Faenix

Same here. Most people just refer to them by their individual names, rather than the franchise title.

@Mmmmz
But if someone tried to trademark "Fantasy" as the name of a video game, in today's market (yes I saw there was an arcade game in 1982), Square Enix's lawyers would likely say something about that too.
The problem here (that I see) isn't that "Scrolls" is IN the title (Like Majong called it "Scrolls of the Navarone" or something), it's that Majong is actually trying to trademark just the word 'Scrolls' in and of itself. Really not trying to fanboy it up or anything, cause I think the whole situation (and how the laws work) is as dumb as everyone else, but I don't thinks it's as simple as most people think.

I do think they should just accept the challenge though. It would go down in history.

@swooded
Scrolls of the Navarone™ Swooded industries.

@Mmmmz

My friends refer to new ES games as "that new Morrowind game" because Morrowind was the first ES game any of us played.

Skyrim is just the latest of "those Morrowind games."

@ShingoEX

Actually, due to the nature of trademark law, I'd be extremely surprised if id and Bethesda hadn't been sued/issued a Cease&Desist over the trademark of "Rage". However, most trademark cases like this are settled behind the scenes, and only rarely are made public (the Tim Langdell cases for example). The fact that the first thing Notch did when he got Bethesda's Cease&Desist was to post it on Twitter speaks volumes about his unprofessional-ism.

Plus I should point out that according to the Electronic Trademark Database (and if I'm reading this right), Notch's trademark of the word "Scrolls" is quite broad, including t-shirts, any article of clothing, and even toys. This means that the trademark Notch filed conflicts with over half a dozen other trademarks by other companies (all of which are still active). The guy would have gotten sued over this one way or another, even if Bethesda had stayed out of this.

You can see Notch's trademark here for yourself: http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4001:ah7l8s.3.7

@Darkelfguy

Sorry, that link doesn't work. You'll have to go to the Trademark Electronic Search system and search the word "Scrolls" yourself. Notch's trademark is in the top five results.

http://tess2.uspto.gov/

@katssun Does Bethesda actually have "Scrolls" trademarked? "Elder Scrolls" makes me think of their games, but scrolls sound like slang for sidescrollers. Even though it's not authoritative, Wikipedia disambiguation doesn't redirect Scrolls to Elder Scrolls. If this trademark is so well known (by uh, anyone) maybe they should have let people know by marketing it years ago. As a gamer, I don't associate scrolls with Bethesda. I'll be hard pressed to associate it with the Scrolls card game, as the name is pretty generic. Both parties should admit that scrolls is too vague and use better names.

@IndigoHawk

No, Bethesda doesn't have "Scrolls" trademarked, they have "The Elder Scrolls" trademarked. The reason they are pursuing legal action with Notch over his trademark of "Scrolls" is because of the way trademark law works (you have to defend against any potential threat to your trademark or you risk losing it) and the various similarities between the two products (besides the "Scrolls" bit, Notch's game appears to be fantasy themed and may well include some RPG elements, so despite the two products being mostly different in terms of gameplay, there is actually a case for similarity).

In addition it should be noted that multiple companies can trademark the same word (like "Scrolls" or "Rage") so long as they're specified for different things. E.g. There's a company that has a trademark on the word "Rage" in relation to pesticides and this trademark can co-exist with Id's "Rage" trademark in relation to computer-games.

What I find really interesting about Notch's trademark though, is just how broad it is. It's not just a trademark for a computer game, it's also a trademark for clothing (such as t-shirts) and toys as well. Which means that Notch's trademark for the word "Scrolls" would also conflict with the "Scrolls" trademark made by the Scrolls Clothing Company (specified for t-shirts). It's interesting that there's been no word on them acting on Notch's clear violation of their trademark, though this could just be because their trademark didn't finish going through registration until two weeks ago (it usually takes about a year for a trademark to go through the registration process).

@Darkelfguy Is that somewhat similar to The Beatles and Apple? Didn't the lawyers for The Beatles get upset when Apple got into music?

@mikemantia Eh, the man is naturally showy. He booked a MinecraftCon in Vegas when a poll read 65% of people asked wouldn't go, he just does everything dramatically.

@Jetleo1

But that's probably a decent percentage. Think about it, how many conventions have you been to compared to how many you would have liked to attended? For example, I'd have gladly attend Gamescom, but I just can't justify spending the money for an overseas flight to attend a game show.

@gevenstaines

See one of my above posts. But for a brief summery, the way trademark law works is that you can have multiple trademarks of the same word or phrase, assuming they're for different things. For example, "Rage" is trademarked for motorized scooters, and this trademark can co-exist with another trademark "Rage" for computer games and another one for pesticides, all of them by different companies. However, these trademarks must be defended from any form of threat in order to be kept, so companies will often enter trademark disputes when a similar trademark is made for the same product/service.

These trademark disputes are fairly common and usually settled out of court without ever coming to the attention of the public. Basically, Bethesda and Id Software probably did enter a trademark dispute over their "Rage" trademark, but it would have been settled behind the scenes. Contrary to popular belief, most companies don't go advertising trademark disputes on twitter (*cough* Notch *cough*).

In the case of "Scrolls" and "The Elder Scrolls" both are for computer-games and both are fantasy-themed (and it looks like "Scrolls" may have some light RPG mechanics). There is certainly a case for similarity, so Bethesda's actions aren't completely unreasonable. If Notch had simply titled the game "Scrolls" and not trademarked it, or had gone with a longer trademark (like "Scrolls: The Card Game") there wouldn't be an issue at all right now (the vast majority of indie games are not, in fact, trademarked).