Patent Trolling


I don't knew how trademark is elswhere.
But in the EU, you have to pursue every trademark violation you knew of.
If you don't, you loose the trademark.
 
This is a scumbag move, but nowhere near as bad as some finer examples.

Truth be told, I enjoy glitchy Bethesda games, so there you go.
 
I don't knew how trademark is elswhere.
But in the EU, you have to pursue every trademark violation you knew of.
If you don't, you loose the trademark.
Exactly so. If you look at the update that's Bethesda's official statement as well: this is how the system works, unfortunately.
 
That was because Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, decided that even after they lost they still didn't want the competition. It didn't really backfire, they weren't under any legal requirement to buy the trademark, they just wanted to.
Considering Bethesda's response about how they tried, several times, to contact the Prey For the Gods team and only went full-lawyer after several months of no contact, I really don't think they were invested in the battle; they literally only did it because they were legally obligated to, and given Bethesda's previous trademark disputes I'd wager they'd have worked something out if only the PFTG team had responded to an email or two.
 
They are not obligated to. Pray as a game series, the AAA game series, is not equivalent to a indie studio with pray somewhere in the title.
What "Praey" does, is make it look like a knockoff pray game, were it a problem in the first place.

What it undeniably does is hurt what shoddy reputation Bethesda had left.
 
It doesn't have to be equivalent, there just has to be overlap that could cause confusion. Prey the game and Prey for the Gods the game: both games, potential for confusion, therefore they needed to followup or someone else could make a very valid argument that they failed to defend their trademark and it is therefore void. Apple the music company and Apple the computer company got into a battle over the Apple logo: two very different industries and yet trademark was in danger; they eventually settled with Apple computers promising not to go into the music industry. If two major players in their respective, distinct industries can have trouble with trademarks how is it so hard to believe that two developers within the same industry might have the same problem?
Suppose they had said nothing, they knew this other game existed but didn't reach out to point out the possible conflict. Another company sees this, says "I want to use the 'Prey' name and am evil" and sues Bethesda for it. They have a valid case, it now falls on Bethesda to prove that there is no chance of confusion between Prey and Prey for the Gods in court, a thing that will cost them money. By pro-actively reaching out they've done their due diligence, they can't be sued for failing to defend.
Again, they didn't really have a choice, this is unfortunately how trademarks work. I believe Bethesda when they say they attempted to reach out to the developers several times before and after the kickstarter, and it was only when they had been unresponsive for weeks that they sent in the C&D. I say again, I'm pretty sure if they'd just responded to the earlier messages something would've been worked out that solves everyone's problems. This isn't the first time Bethesda has gotten into trouble over trademarks and it won't be the last; they're not even the first company to have to defend trademark against little guys either and they absolutely won't be the last.
 
It's absurd how someone can trademark a common English word and then be able to keep others from using that same common word as part of their title. Words are such basic building blocks of language, I understand being able to protect two or more put together, but a single word on its own could mean so many things. Given enough time, there won't be any real words left to use.
 
This is why trademark needs to be abolished. Or at the very least they need to remove the clause that says one can lose it for 'not protecting' it.
 
remove the clause that says one can lose it for 'not protecting' it.

In some ways that's good though, as it prevents zombie companies hanging on to long-dead trademarks.
Similarly, I think copyright should only hold as long as you're distributing the work to the public for sensible market prices.
Patents should only hold while you're either selling, or actively developing a given technology.
 
Bethesda sounds like they're full of shit when they say that they were forced to make this indie studio change their game's name or lose any trademark protection of "Prey." But I'm not a lawyer and a lot of actual court wins sound full of shit.

Still, from what I can find there are two explanations for the "defend it or lose it" argument:

- The "laches" defense which would allow protection against a claimant if they would have reasonably known the defendant was using the name for a long period of time. But this would only apply to a particular case and wouldn't strike down the trademark altogether.
- If a mark becomes "genericised" to the point where the public so strongly associates it with a product and not a brand the trademark can be stricken. Apparently this happened with "escalator" which now no one associates with any particular company or brand. And since "XEROX" had been so strongly associated with copy machines the trademark may have been lost if the company hadn't defended it rigorously (and since the company itself is named XEROX that would have been pretty harmful to them)

Laches wouldn't apply to a future case and there's no plausible risk that this game would cause "Prey" to ever become a generic term for a game genre. And even then, from what I can find it seems highly unlikely that the suit would even win in court because it's hard to get trademark protection for a single one-shot title, it's hard to protect against a title that only uses a mark in its title, and it's questionable that a trademark of a single common verb for a title would even be legitimate.

But that doesn't matter to Bethesda, they know a little crowd funded game can't afford to defend themselves in court so they win no matter what. Funny how despite being something they're supposedly forced to do it's practically just them and another couple big companies that ever does this. And it's a good thing because otherwise the gaming industry would be a minefield of trademark suits left and right from overlapping pieces of titles using common words.

Their line of argument also means they should have lost the trademark when no one defended it against "Wings of Prey" in 2009 (and I'm sure that's not the only game that had the name in its title since the original 2006 Prey was released). Which would make the whole thing moot now.

It's also funny that ultimately this probably helps the indie study a lot more than it hurts them by providing much needed advertisement and support while forcing a title change that is in my opinion better anyway. And it ultimately only hurts Bethesda's PR and will probably result in fewer sales. So maybe it's not all bad.
 
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