At 9:12 +0000 2/18/03, Martin Cutbill wrote:
True. But if they haven't registered it *yet*, nor claimed it even once [anybody *ever* see a "tm" on "beholder" in any TSR/WotC/Hasbro work?], nor even once pursued someone who "violated" the claim, i suspect they'd be hard pressed to defend the trademark.> But those aren'ttrademarks. [frex, just did a trademark search on"beholder"--closesti find is a dead trademark for "The Beholder", a web-comic, formerly owned by Nabisco. ]Ah, but you could only have searched Registered Trademarks. Beholder could, f'rinstance, be simply a Trademark.
Not exactly:Does the WotC OGL expressly forbid using registered trademarks without permission?
"7. ...You agree not to indicate compatibility or co-adaptability
with any Trademark or Registered Trademark in conjunction with a work
containing Open Game Content except as expressly licensed in another,
independent Agreement with the owner of such Trademark or Registered
Trademark."
So, you're only forbidden from using trademarks in that specific manner--however, it'd be pretty hard to use a reference to a monster without indicating at least "co-adaptability" with the work containing that monster, it seems to me. [especially since, IMHO, *any* two RPG products are co-adaptable--i don't think it'd be possible to create two that *couldn't* be adapted to use with one another.]
oh, and for purposes of the license, "trademark" has been widened to:
"1. (f) "Trademark" means the logos, names, mark, sign, motto, designs that are used by a Contributor to identify itself or its products or the associated products contributed to the Open Game License by the Contributor;"
Forgot that part. Still doesn't seem to me that "beholder" (or most of the others) would fall under that category.
--
woodelf <*>
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http://webpages.charter.net/woodelph/
"Sorry, but I'm an old-fashioned gal. I was raised to believe that men
dig up the corpses, and women have the babies." --Buffy
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