On Thu, 21 Feb 2002 11:51:09 -0800, Ryan S. Dancey wrote: >And being "generically used" doesn't mean anything, unless the term >was "generically used" to mean a type of product.
I have no idea what the USPTO considers to be valid evidence of prior use, but there are numerous examples where "D20 system" was used generically prior to WOTC's effort to claim it "D20 System" as a trademark. A cursory Web and Usenet search finds dozens of "d20 system" references that predate D20/OGL and refer to (a) a rule or set of rules using a D20, (b) an entire rules system, (c) a rules system used in Twilight: 2000, or (d) D&D, in declining frequency. I've included a long list at the end of this post. If WOTC was just claiming a trademark on the visual "D20 System" graphic as a mark, I could understand that. However, if no one else can use the words "D20 system" or a soundalike such as "Free20" to describe a rules system or rules within a particular system, it seems like WOTC is appropriating words that are established in the public domain. As a side issue, a current search of EBay turns up 334 items with D20 as a keyword and only 16 with D20 System. A search on Amazon turns up 35 items with D20 as a title word and 9 with D20 System. It appears that the marketplace is using D20 alone to refer to these products more often than D20 System. The list ... Excerpts from Web pages found using Google in April 2000: "Combat system has been simplified. Basically, its a d20 system now, instead of d100, with DRMs based on 150+ variables." -- a review of Babylon 5 Wars by Christopher Weuve "Fading Suns uses a d20 system where players attempt to succeed at various tasks by rolling equal to or less than a predetermined target number." -- a catalog description from The Game Preserve "TimeLords (and its various related systems also by Greg Porter/BTRC, including the more distant relation, CORPS) basically uses skill points to buy skills (at a steeply increasing cost -- it's a d20 system where an average skill of level n costs n^2 points) ..." -- a Usenet posting by [EMAIL PROTECTED] archived on a Web site "Harnmaster is a d100 (percentile) system. Pendragon is a d20 system. This makes it very easy to convert between them." -- a game conversion system written by Lydia Leong "The new edition of the game is basically just a reprint of the old GDW material. Some new rules have been incorporated, especially in character generation. The D20 system included in the original Empathic Sourcebook and Proto-dimensions Sourcebook Volume 1 replaces the D10 system in the original rulebook." -- a review of Dark Conspiracy 2nd Edition by Geoff Skellams "Dark Conspiracy was the first role-playing game I ever designed from the ground up. (As a matter of fact, although the game was published with the GDW 'house system' from Twilight: 2000 at its core, I'd originally built it around an experimental d20 system.)" -- game designer Lester Smith on his home page. "I am currently working on a d20 system for STAR FRONTIERS and would like any suggestions and input for new rules." -- Thomas Fuller in a 1996 posting to the Star Frontiers mailing list "Home Rules. This variant allows Alternity game players to generate Ordinary, Good, and Amazing results using a simple d20 system." -- Wizards of the Coast on its own Web site at http://www.wizards.com/alternity/station.asp Excerpts from Usenet postings prior to March 2000: "The 2nd ed. DMG magic item chart is so awful it leaves me aghast. Percentiles work for the distribution of really rare items sure....they're still be a 1% chance to get that Staff of the Magi, but the d20 system raises that to 5%!" "In developing my own game, I realized that on a twenty-unit scale (using a d20 system) the differences between a 10 and 11 tend to get lost in the randomness of the die roll." "As far as the arquebus and D&D goes it was with the game in the beginning when you still used Chainmail's Man to Man rules but was left out when they whent to the d20 system officially." "The system itself is a D20 system we hashed out here (watch out what happens when you have a bunch of computer programmers helping develop a probabllity system)." "Costikyan's THE PRICE OF FREEDOM had an explicit ruling that rolls made under non-stressful circumstances get doubled. It was a d20 system, so anyone with a score of 10 could count on definitely succeeding if she had time and equipment to make a careful go of it." "It works within the confines of a d20 system (i.e. within the confines of AD&D)." "If anyone has been following my threads, I have been bashing TNE and the GDW D20 system." "Many of the problems with T:2000 v2.0 were fixed by the adapting and refinement of what was then called the 'd20 system'." "Also, we don't use the official GDW house system. We have the old Twilight: 2000 system on attributes/skills/combat. I'm sorry to say but I never liked the changes (I have not tried the d20 system...but we're happy (more or less) with the current variant (although we are discussing some damage/hit capacity changes))." _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
