
In the future, all space marines will be Warhammer 40K space marines - ValentineC
http://mcahogarth.org/?p=10593
======
drakeandrews
I knew this was going to happen some day. Games Workshop is essentially two
separate companies, the raving legal department/copyright trolls (A couple of
years ago they regularly put full page colour adverts in all the British
wargaming magazines warning that they would enforce their IP with the full
power afforded to them by the law, it was generally considered a bad joke by
most.) and the (for a lack of a better term) hobbyists who make most of the
miniatures and write most of the rules. And it seems like they take turns
running the company. For ages, there'll be lots of player-friendly new things
and shiny new figures and the terrible quota-driven managers at the shops will
be replaced with the people who are there because they love their hobby. And
then everything'll change and they'll start enforcing stupid dictats on IP,
change the rules of the games to excessively favour those with bigger wallets,
bump up the prices of everything and fire those people that sacrifice short
term gains for cultivating a long term base of customers and fans.

I find it really sad, I grew up near their HQ in Nottingham. A number of my
dad's friends work for them. And I'd love for this to be the push that means
that all the other wargaming companies (who in the past couple of years have
really progressed in professionalism and quality) will find even more
traction. (Although they all still suffer from a lack of space to sell things,
there is a GW in almost every town in the UK. They've all but squeezed out the
independent hobby shops.) But a lot of people just won't care. And an equal
number of people are too locked in, they've spent a lot of money on the GW
armies. All their friends have GW armies. You can't just splurge two, three
hundred pounds on warmahordes unless all your friends do the same.

All I can hope is that GW gets their arse handed to them and the hobbyists get
put back in charge.

~~~
eliasmacpherson
About the favouring those with deeper wallets: there's a great history of
players making their own miniatures. I think provided they are reasonably near
the dimensions of the 'original' piece - the homemade pieces are accepted and
encouraged, allowing those without the financial means to use their own.

~~~
drakeandrews
The official line has always been fuzzy. A lot of the more quota-led managers
would bring out the "no-proxy" rules a lot. But then there is a very blurred
line between a "converted" figure and a plain old handmade one. In this
regard, HQ was much more lenient than other stores.

~~~
eliasmacpherson
Anecdote: Many many stores proudly display 'proxy' models in the windows,
presumably made by the staff. I know of very specific rules for tournaments
but I can't see casual gamers enforcing them.

------
tristanperry
This is unfortunate but not unexpected.

I used to run a fairly large 40K website (Tau Online, now defunct).

I'd regularly receive letters and e-mails from the Games Workshop legal team.

I remember one time, someone had made a simple post on our forums saying they
were thinking of selling a short story they'd written based around the 40K
World. He hadn't named the story. It wasn't for sale. He was just thinking out
loud.

Anywhoo, the GW lawyers contacted me: they asked me to delete the whole
thread, ban the user and provide them with the poster's IP address, name and
contact information. Which, y'know, is a bit overkill. (And possibly not
legal? We didn't have their name nor contact information, but I would have
assumed I couldn't just hand this information out to any random lawyer).

As in this case, the Games Workshop legal team regularly throw around threats
- often with no legal basis.

I hope the blog poster is able to garner enough support to move forward with
this. Unfortunately I fear that GW's baseless threats will beat back
hobbyists, yet again..

~~~
masklinn
At least Warhammer 40K is their actual product. As comments in TFA and here
indicate the expression has been in scifi since 1932:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_marine>

~~~
mikecane
There were Space Marines in the 007 movie _Moonraker._

------
bunderbunder
According to Wikipedia[1], the first use of the term 'space marine' in
literature was the 1932 short story _Captain Brink of the Space Marines_ by
Bob Olsen. That's a full 43 years before Games Workshop was founded, and 55
years before _Warhammer 40K_ was introduced.

And the prior usage of the term and concept kept coming strong throughout the
intervening half-century.

1: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_marine>

~~~
dkhenry
So why is this not an open and shut case ?

~~~
njharman
Because lack of "prior art" is not a requirement for trademark, nor is
uniqueness.

"Coke" has other meanings <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coke_(fuel)> and yet
is still trademarked.

~~~
bunderbunder
That said, isn't it the case that one can't just take something that exists in
common usage and trademark it as-is?

For example, the basic structure of the fairy tale about Aladdin and the magic
lamp had been around for a long time, and was clearly not originated by
Disney. Consequently, Disney has no right to claim trademark or copyright
control over the name Aladdin or or anything generally related to the story.
They only get rights over their own work - additions they made to the story,
characters' appearances, etc.

Similarly, Games Workshop shouldn't be able to own the phrase 'space marines'.
At most, all they should get to control is the use of the name Space Marines
to describe the surgically-enhanced cybernetic super-soldiers that are
peculiar to their franchise.

~~~
ajross
Was "space marine" in common usage in 1987, though? The fact that it exists in
a long out-of-print pulp novel doesn't mean that everyone understood its
meaning. Again, this isn't a patent. All that's required is that, when the
trademark was registered, GW's usage of the term was unique and relevant to
their business.

~~~
jasonkester
Aliens came out in 1986. I don't know how much more common you need to be than
that.

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090605/>

I'd personally been using the term since growing up watching Star Blazers
cartoons in the 70s.

~~~
ajross
As pointed out elsewhere, the grunts in Aliens were not "space marines". Once
again: this is a trademark. GW doesn't have a monopoly on the idea of "Sci-Fi
Marines". They have a _trademark_ on the _specific term_ "Space Marine" as
used within their realms of business. That includes fiction, so the linked
post was infringing. Sorry, but it was.

~~~
Retric
Sorry, but they did use "space marines"

EX: "ALIENS SPACE MARINE LT.RIPLEY" [http://www.amazon.com/ALIENS-SPACE-
MARINE-LT-RIPLEY/dp/B0009...](http://www.amazon.com/ALIENS-SPACE-MARINE-LT-
RIPLEY/dp/B0009A0OMU)

~~~
ajross
Arrgh. AGAIN: it's not a patent! "Prior art" proves nothing. If this figure's
manufacturer was not a going business venture in 1987 (or whenever GW filed
that trademark) then GW was entirely within their rights to file such a
trademark.

And even if this was 100% contemporaneous, the party with standing to
challenge that trademark would be the toy company, and not the linked post.
The remedy would be to immunize the toy company from GW, or perhaps to award
them damages due to GW's mark causing loss of sales.

~~~
jlgreco
He's not claiming that their trademark is invalid because of "prior art", he
is saying that they should not have a trademark on the term in the same way
that Tropicana should not be permitted to have a trademark on "orange juice".

That is to say, "space marine" and "orange juice" are both clearly descriptive
marks. That "space marine" is a descriptive mark is evidenced by it's long
history of usage.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_distinctiveness>

------
jiggy2011
Games Workshop must be scared shitless of 3d printing.

Their rulebooks have been passed around on torrent sites and IRC networks for
years but I assumed they never really gave a shit because the models are where
the cash is.

~~~
hartror
Yeah they're pretty boned. They'd be mad not to accept the inevitable embrace
the tech and re-gear their business model around that.

~~~
cheald
Given how hard they've worked to squeeze their fanbase for as much cash as
possible, it kinda seems like they're toast.

A beloved brand can survive a technological shift that invalidates their
current business model, but a reviled brand is done.

------
a2tech
As a huge science fiction nerd and Games Workshop customer, this feels like
rank betrayal. I expect this kind of legal bullying from big companies, but
from a company that makes minifigs and other gaming accessories I expect
better behavior.

~~~
DanBC
GW has previous form, they issued a bunch of C&Ds recently to many websites.

And they're a pretty big company. They're a PLC trading on London Stock
Exchange. ([http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/prices-and-
marke...](http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/prices-and-
markets/stocks/summary/company-summary.html?fourWayKey=GB0003718474GBGBXSSQ3))

~~~
waterlesscloud
If they're public, they're subject to shareholder reaction.

Perhaps making large shareholders aware of the PR damage the company is about
to take is a viable path.

~~~
teamonkey
They were using this sort of legal bullying as a tactic when I was a kid.
They've seen more than their share of "PR damage" in the past and it doesn't
put them off.

------
CodeMage
There's some interesting discussion on Scalzi's blog, too. Here's a bit of
information I found rather interesting and potentially useful (from the
comments section):

 _The mark was registered for US Class 22 – games and such – and is most
specifically not the class(es) for printed books or ebooks._

Here's the link to the comment in question:

[http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/02/06/space-marines-and-
the-...](http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/02/06/space-marines-and-the-battle-
of-tradem-ark/#comment-435865)

~~~
drucken
It appears you are correct.

Oldest "Space Marine" trademark record in full:

1\. Registration Number 2100767
([http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4004:vp...](http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4004:vp3r6z.2.6))
here:

<quote>

Word Mark SPACE MARINE

Goods and Services IC 028. US 022. G & S: _board games, parlor games, war
games, hobby games, toy models and miniatures of buildings, scenery, figures,
automobiles, vehicles, planes, trains and card games and paint, sold
therewith_. FIRST USE: 19870900. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19871000

Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING

Serial Number 74186534

Filing Date July 19, 1991

Current Basis 1A

Original Filing Basis 1A

Published for Opposition November 23, 1993

Registration Number 1922180

Registration Date September 26, 1995

Owner (REGISTRANT) GAMES WORKSHOP LIMITED CORPORATION UNITED KINGDOM Willow
Road, Lenton Eastwood Nottingham NG7 2W5 UNITED KINGDOM

Attorney of Record Naresh Kilaru

Type of Mark TRADEMARK

Register PRINCIPAL

Affidavit Text SECT 15. SECT 8 (6-YR). SECTION 8(10-YR) 20051125.

Renewal 1ST RENEWAL 20051125

Live/Dead Indicator LIVE

</quote>

2\. Games Workshop Limited also owns "Space Marine" Registration Number
1922180
([http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4004:vp...](http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4004:vp3r6z.2.4)):

"Goods and Services: IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: _video computer
games; computer software for playing games_ "

------
unwind
That is ... incredibly stupid.

I'm no 40K fan (at all), but I realize it's huge. On the other hand, the
concept of "marines, but in space" really is a genre trope as pointed out in
the article. It feels wrong for a single company to own that generic term.

I've read if not shelf-meters then certainly shelf-decimeters of SF with
plenty of marines in them, none being of the Warhammer variety.

I'm looking forward (not) for the chilling effects to make authors invent new
wordings to avoid infringement.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
They only "own" it because they're taking it. Space marines were used in
science fiction before they did it. They're taking something that doesn't
belong to them, by being much bigger than their opponent. The word for that is
bullying.

~~~
newbie12
Here's the Games Workshop customer support email:

CustServ@gwplc.com

Can't hurt to let them know we aren't pleased.

~~~
hagios
Can't hurt, but I suspect it won't help. I wrote in, and it took less than two
minutes to receive a response which basically said "write to legal, not to
us."

Here's to hoping I'm wrong and they listen to unhappy people.

~~~
anthonyb
legal@gwplc.com

(from [http://www.games-
workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=...](http://www.games-
workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=&categoryId=&section=&pIndex=3&aId=3900002&start=4&multiPageMode=true))

------
sxp
Google's Ngram Viewer shows that the term "Space Marine" was in use for quite
a while before W40K's 1987 release but there was a big increase after 1987. At
a glance, the trend seems to be similar to trends for other related terms such
as "powered armor" but doesn't match the trend for "Warhammer".

[http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=space+marine%2C...](http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=space+marine%2Cspace+marines&year_start=1940&year_end=2010&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=)

~~~
riazrizvi
Amazon itself sells a few books with the term. Why doesn't the author ask
Amazon to take down the other non-Warhammer titles or reinstate his?
[http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_pg_9?rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3A%22s...](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_pg_9?rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3A%22space+marine%22&page=9&sort=daterank&keywords=%22space+marine%22&ie=UTF8&qid=1360179344)

~~~
danielweber
I only saw one entry on the first page of those results that had the term and
wasn't a GW license.

------
dkhenry
The solution to this is to not support Games Workshop any more. They are no
good for anyone including your FLGS. Stop giving them the attention and money
that allows them to continue to punish their customers and competitors

------
nroach
The G&S description for their mark is board games, parlor games, war games,
hobby games, toy models and miniatures of buildings, scenery, figures,
automobiles, vehicles, planes, trains and card games and paint, sold
therewith.

The mark has been registered for more than five years so it is
"incontestable"(with caveats). But, even if the registration is valid, they
have an issue with the class and g&s for their mark in terms of enforcing it
against your goods and services.

~~~
cube13
GW has the printed material trademark in Europe. They complained to Amazon UK,
which caused Amazon to remove it from everything.

<http://mcahogarth.org/?p=9999>

This strikes me as more of an issue with Amazon than anything else, because
they should have only removed the book from the markets where it the complaint
was raised, instead of everywhere.

------
incision
That's really too bad.

I've enjoyed many 40K novels, love the Dawn of War games and even own some
table top material, but I wasn't aware of GW's taste for lawsuits until now.

GW just lost a customer.

Thankfully, Dan Abnett isn't afraid to write original novels and Relic has
other franchises.

------
awakeasleep
We might be watching a company eat itself here. Considering the amount of
engineering types in the market for minifigs, plus the impending
ubiquitization of 3D printers, customer good-will should be the most valuable
asset of Gamer's Workshop.

~~~
illuminate
No amount of good-will is going to prevent GW's business model from being
seriously affected by consumer-level 3d printers.

Thankfully for them, we're still a few years away from this being a concern.
My guess? 3-4 or whenever the UV resin-baseds take off. The Repraps and
higher-quality extruders still aren't ready for your average consumer in
price, time, and finish.

~~~
cheald
Sure, a loved and respected brand could pivot to selling printer schematics
and printing materials/paints that are tested and guaranteed to work well
together. Set up local branches that have printers so you can go into the
store, buy some schematics and print them off (at a markup) there in the store
directly.

You eliminate all your manufacturing and packaging costs and get to keep your
fanbase engaged. You could really go for the gold and offer a subscription
that gets you recurring access to new schematics, and then you can pivot the
business towards designing new units and since you no longer have a
manufacturing concern to maintain, you can churn out tons more units.

------
jrwoodruff
I wish there was a Kickstarter like non-profit organization whose focus was
finding and defending worthy cases like this. People/organizations submit
their situation and do the work of raising awareness and collecting pledges,
the organization uses the money to oversee the actual legal case and pay the
attorneys, ideally a network of folks who would be willing to consider
defending said cases at a reduced or pro-bono rate when possible. Might even
out the David-and-Goliath odds of corporation vs. small business/individual.

~~~
scarecrowbob
This was my initial reaction. Is there any reason why you couldn't create a
kickstarter campaign around this?

~~~
tolos
> Prohibited uses:

> No charity or cause funding. [0]

Indiegogo would probably allow it though. See for example [1]

[0] <http://www.kickstarter.com/help/guidelines>

[1] <http://www.indiegogo.com/bearlovegood>

~~~
scarecrowbob
Rather than approaching it as a cause, could it be understood as gaining IP
clearance and the the last step in the production of the novel; I mean,
legitimately one of the last steps in making the specific novel a reality, not
just a general cause.

------
protomyth
They weren't exactly the nicest company in the 80's and 90's (ask a lot of old
game store owners), so I guess it comes as no surprise that they took the
lesson they learned from Blizzard this way.

------
styluss
They also have a trademark on Eldar, a term for a race of Elves in Lord of the
Rings.

~~~
bencollier49
I rather hope that this will be one of those situations where overstepping the
mark leads to their being pulled up on _all_ of their unreasonable trademarks
and copyright assertions.

------
cobrausn
He missed the chance to title this post with 'In the grim darkness of the far
future...'

~~~
bentcorner
... there is only litigation.

 _"Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten,
never to be relearned."_

------
Argorak
Legally, where does that leave StarCraft, especially the soon to be released
Heart of the Swarm (all have units called Space Marines)?

If GW don't (and never did) enforce their trademark against Blizzard, do they
have any say against a book author that wants to push the topic in front of a
court?

AFAIK, Blizzard didn't license the term.

~~~
jzilla
It's pretty funny, Warcraft and Starcraft are both blatant ripoffs of GW's
Warhammer and WH40k. I even recall reading somewhere the original Warcraft RTS
was to be an officially licensed Warhammer game. But gee whiz, I wonder why we
don't see legal action brought against Blizzard?

~~~
wisty
Starcraft rips off both WH40k _and_ Aliens, but I think it rips of Aliens
more. Plus, Aliens was released 1 year before WH40k, so it has precedence. And
Aliens ripped off Starship Troopers (the book), and Starship Troopers (the
movie) rips off Aliens. It's complicated.

WH original and Warcaft are both simpler - they both rip off LOTR.

~~~
Argorak
Which, in terms of trademark, is very irrelevant :).

~~~
Natsu
This is a weak trademark, it has no secondary meaning that I can discern. You
have marines. They're in space. Thus, "space marines." That would seem to fall
under the weaker classes of trademark protection[1] and even though I have
long known about Warhammer 40K, the words "space marines" do not make me (or
most other people I know) think of Warhammer 40K. Personally, that term makes
me think of the Aliens movie and Starcraft. They're nowhere near as famous.

Of course, the problem here is that they have more lawyers and wherewithal to
contest this than most. Your average person does not have the resources to
make a federal case out of this and their lawyers have a perverse incentive to
be assholes when trying to prop up a weak trademark claim.

[1] <http://www.bitlaw.com/trademark/degrees.html>

~~~
Argorak
This is all true and the interesting part of the story. My point is that just
crying "prior art" doesn't work in trademark. Observations like yours do.

------
Zimahl
Does it have to be 'space marine'? Can he change it to 'galactic' or
'interstallar' or something else that would be less infringing?

I know it's disheartening but this isn't the battle he wants to fight. Someone
with deeper pockets will fight it someday. It's enough to spread the word
about GW's legal bullying and let us all make our own decisions on whether we
want to purchase their products.

------
msandford
The really unfortunate part of the situation is that they are generally
required to defend their trademark or else it goes away. Even when they know
something is "fair use" or whatever.

"Unlike patents and copyrights, which in theory are granted for one-off fixed
terms, trademarks remain valid as long as the owner actively uses and defends
them and maintains their registrations with the competent authorities. This
often involves payment of a periodic renewal fee."
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Comparison_with_paten...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Comparison_with_patents.2C_designs_and_copyright)

Of course I still think that there is no effing way that they should have
gotten a trademark on "Space Marine." Totally bogus. I want to start selling a
product called "Legal" and trademark it and use that trademark to shut down
every company that offers legal services.

~~~
danielweber
They are not required to sue every person to defend their trade mark. They
could simply ask Hogarth to enter a license agreement.

------
gamblor956
In the future, all "space marines" will simply be "marines." In any plausible
scenario in which we have "space marines," having a dedicated corpus of naval
marines would be unnecessary.

Ergo, the solution is simply to let Games Workshop keep the silly moniker and
just call your future super-soldiers what they would properly be called.

~~~
jiggy2011
Wouldn't they really be called something else entirely?

The term marine implies a soldier who specialises in sea based warfare or
deploying from sea.

~~~
jellicle
Humans rarely use new words when old words will do. When we were looking for a
word to use for "thing that keeps us alive in space", "ship" was the obvious
one since we already had a word for "thing that keeps us alive on the ocean".

When we are looking for a word for "soldiers that accompany ships in space",
"marines" is almost certainly the word that is going to be used.

------
DanBC
Google trends search:
[https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=%22space%20marines%2...](https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=%22space%20marines%22)

All ten related searches are for GW items.

But, of the A through G points on the 2004 to present graph, only two items
are for GW.

------
bitwize
Once the USMC, which has for the past few decades used _Starship Troopers_ as
an inspiration for how it should be organized, actually commences near-Earth-
orbit operations, I'm sure they'd have an opinion about this mark and this
sort of lawsuit.

------
cstross
The suckiest aspect of what they're doing is the target.

GW are sending their nastygrams to a novelist. And not a best-seller, but a
low-budget self-published author who's been donating a chunk of the proceeds
to veterans' charities: someone without a sufficiently deep pocket to fund a
legal defense.

If GW's lawyers _really_ had the power of their convictions they'd have
started by targeting James Cameron over "Avatar". After all, which
infringement is more damaging to their brand -- an obscure self-pub serial
with maybe a couple of thousand readers, or a big budget movie franchise that
cost a billion dollars to make and presumably (Hollywood accounting practices
aside) made the backers a profit?

~~~
limmeau
However, there is prior art for "Avatar" in hinduism.

~~~
cstross
Prior art is applicable to patent law, not trademarks (at least, not in the
context of invalidating them).

------
stcredzero
If the author kickstarted or otherwise crowd funded the legal defense for
this, I'll give $100. Trademarking "Space Marine" is pretty much like
trademarking "Amphibious Car." It's not exactly a mainstream term, but still
everyone immediately knows what it means without explanation, and it's been in
common use within its niche for almost a century.

It would be one thing if GW had sent the nastygram and came to some kind of
token settlement, that should be enough to cover their interests, but to get
the book taken down instead seems wrong.

Stupid trademarks are another form of IP pollution. $100 from me!

------
BillySquid
It's a shame, warhammer40k has an interesting plot (including horus heresy)
but this kind of corporate bullying plus the ridicule pricing are making fans
to leave the lore.

------
djrtwo
How about a "Save the Space Marines" kickstarter to pay for legal costs on
your case and future cases involving obsurd legal allegations stifling science
fiction writers?

~~~
BillySquid
How about to kickstarter to buy the company and open source the game, like
people building their own armies with 3-d printers!!!

------
danielweber
Popehat is trying to find a trade mark attorney to help out Hogarth. If you
know a lawyer who does this, see if they'll help.

[http://www.popehat.com/2013/02/06/the-popehat-signal-help-
an...](http://www.popehat.com/2013/02/06/the-popehat-signal-help-an-author-
against-a-bogus-trademark-claim/)

------
grabeh
Certainly in the UK, it's a defence to use a trade mark in good faith in a
descriptive manner. I think this would be a solid defence in this case as the
usage is merely describing the character (I assume).

Of course the problem is internet intermediaries who are not interested in the
nuances of trade mark law.

In the first instance, I would look to appeal the Amazon decision on the basis
of good faith descriptive usage. I'm not sure how much mileage there would be
on this due to the general lack of interest mentioned above but worth a try
all the same. If it is indeed Amazon UK where the complaint has been lodged
I'd be happy to look into the matter further.

In terms of an obligation to defend a trade mark, this is a narrower
obligation than is being cast elsewhere in the thread. My understanding is
that if you do not enforce in relation to a specific use, you will be deemed
to have acquiesced in that specific usage.

It is not the case that failing to take action against all allegedly
infringing uses will result in revocation of the mark. You just may not be
able to take action in the future against the same offender or offenders
within the same bracket.

~~~
jellicle
> Certainly in the UK, it's a defence to use a trade mark in good faith in a
> descriptive manner.

Using it in a descriptive manner is something like:

"I have here for sale two boxes of Kleenex tissues and one box of Band-Aid
bandages and one Warhammer 40K rulebook."

You are not infringing any trademarks, even though you are using the trademark
in commerce, because you do in fact have those things (as created by the
original maker, and resold by you). You are using the trademark to describe
goods, not to indicate that you are the original producer of said goods.

The usage here is entirely different. She is not claiming anything about any
actual Warhammer 40K merchandise. You're right that the trademark claim is
crap, but not for this reason.

~~~
grabeh
I would argue that in the UK, s11(2)(b) of the Trade Mark Act could be used to
make my argument. The book features a marine who is in space aka a space
marine. The usage is necessary to describe the product. Admittedly this may be
a tricky one to run.

Your point is more about exhaustion of right where goods have been put on the
market with the owner's consents. In the UK, this would be covered under s.12
of the above act.

------
damncabbage
Irony alert. Games Workshop railing against strict copyright enforcement in
1978: [http://sphotos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-
prn1/67991_55608864...](http://sphotos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-
prn1/67991_556088641075937_25322784_n.jpg)

------
jay_kyburz
Colonial Marine, Galactic Marine, Star Marine, Void Marine, Interplanetary
Marine. I could come up with many more, why not just pick one of these
instead.

Space Marine sounds familiar for a reason. I've got to side with GW on this
one.

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dylangs1030
But that's not the point - it sounds familiar because it is a catch call term
that has been broadly used in science fiction literature.

This isn't trademarking the term, "lightsaber." This is trademarking the term,
"laser sword."

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bostonpete
I don't really have an opinion one way or another about this, but I wonder if
there's the same sort of anger about the fact that Lucas has (and defends) a
trademark on "droid".

~~~
philwelch
Since the generic term is "robot" or "android", it seems valid to me.

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the_gipsy
Sounds awfully like "I'm only gonna do this if I get enough publicity out of
it".

~~~
cygx
That's not the case here. It's just that an independent artist and novelist
working in a niche market who recently had to take on a regular job again to
pay for family expenses doesn't have money to burn on spurious lawsuites just
for the heck of it.

I've been following her blog feed for a few years now - I started paying
attention because of her free web serials, but the slice-of-life and business
related postings are what kept me reading (on-and-off again, admittedly).

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guard-of-terra
You should not be able to take down a book, a song or an album, a drawing over
intellectual property.

Once it's a piece of art it should be immune to all and every trademark or
copyright (if, of course, the art in question is not a strict copy of another
copyrighted piece of art).

That's the only way.

