On Fri, 11 Aug 2000, John Kim wrote:
> companies have successfully done (Mayfair Games, Companion Games, etc.)
> These companies have to live with the danger of being sued, of course.
> However, as far as I know no lawsuit has been brought to bear against
> such people.
Just to head off possible confusion. Mayfair and TSR did have a
suit in 1991 and trademarks were involved. But the complaint by
TSR was that Mayfair was in breach of a 1984 agreement they had.
At the risk of being tedius (what risk! most people already
think I am), I'll repost a small bit of an old message:
I also find it ironic to note that people who didn't enter
into an agreement with TSR curtailing their usage of trademarks
were not sued:
>Wargames West's 1991 Spring catalog states that Role Aids
>modules "can be used with any fantasy role-playing system,
>especially TSR's Dungeons & Dragons and AD & D systems"
The thread was "Re: [Open_Gaming] Some license updates."
The mailing list archive is at:
http://www.mail-archive.com/ogf-l%40opengamingfoundation.org/
The full text of the TSR vs Mayfair decision is at:
http://www.hoboes.com/pub/Role-Playing/About%20Gaming/Role-Playing%20Defense/Gaming%20Law/TSR%20v%20Mayfair
For anyone who read this far, the reason I use TSR in other
postings and not just WotC is cause TSR still exists.
WotC owns TSR. TSR owns the trademarks and copyrights
we are talking about. If TSR continues to lose money and
have no hope of ever producing a profit under business
practices WotC is comfortable with, TSR may once again be
owned by people who have very different business practices.
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