20 Comments
User's avatar
Joseph L. Wiess's avatar

When you can't sell your own merchandise because nobody wants to read socialist nonsense, you have to shut down other people.

You can't trademark the words Space and Marine any more than you can trademark the words Space and Navy or Star and Fleet.

Man of the Atom's avatar

Marketing bonanza, inbound.

James Taylor's avatar

Smells like they're desperate. They can't see past their nose. They can't believe that their "new" ideas are falling on deaf ears. They thought the loyalty of their customers in the past meant they had carte-blanche to do whatever they felt like and the customer would just "take it."

Turns out that doesn't apply. Now they're trying to salt the ground and take a dump in the sandbox. "if we can't have it, no one can!" It's petty...childish...and self immolating.

They're clown shoes. They are pinning their hopes on bullying. They already lost.

fweeko's avatar

Corporate lawfare over intellectual property is a hill worth having an apocalypse on. These skin-suiting gene stealer cults that have infected the whole world with Corporate Cancer must be stopped dead in their tracks.

Corporations: you are not allowed to own generic ideas. Frick you. How far are you willing to take this? Why don't you just trademark the concept of "boots" or "pauldrons".

"Welp, according to our army of useless lawyer scum, your story has a guy wearing boots and pauldrons, therefore we get to tell you to shut down your entire operation from across the planet, because our army of useless lawyer and human resources scum who have literally destroyed the integrity of all creative arts across the entire planet for the last thirty years, yeah, those retards, they tell us were allowed to do that, isn't that nice, CEASE AND DESIST,

HAHA LOL"

Jim Nealon's avatar

The heirs and descendants of Charles Martel can now file complaints for infringement regarding conbat, actual or simulated? He used the martel: a Warhammer or war hammer, as a personal weapon, in 7th C. AD.

fweeko's avatar

Exactly, corporate copyright offices need to start travelling back in time to collect. Time Cop Loan Sharks x'D

Gridhunter's avatar

Seeking amenable authority, finding none.

Hans G. Schantz's avatar

Any number of other Space Marine IPs out there, too. And now all of them will be aggressively on Jon's side for fear of a precedent that could impact them. Really stupid on GW's part trying to flex this way. Must be some SJW lashing out without thinking.

fweeko's avatar

"Hey my lawyer told me we snagged the TM for the concept of "trees" therefore we get to call up James Cameron for a fat $50k check because Avatar has a big tree in it."

Dr. Franz Hott's avatar

Jon - do you know what this means on the FMC website?

City: London England UK. No shipping options are available for the selected location. Please choose or enter another location. Shipping Fee: Worldwide Shipping $50.00.

Huh? London is excluded from Worldwide, or what it means?

Dr. Franz Hott's avatar

The Terran soldiers in StarCraft are also Space Marines in a Video Game. Are they not allowed to be called what they are because of that preposterous "trademark"?

Brigadon's avatar

Sorry, I know it sucks, but they have to make the attempt or the trademark becomes unprotected. They will lose, but legally they still have to try.

Dr. Franz Hott's avatar

Perhaps that how US trademarks work. And they might have to defend their video game trademark … if JDA were selling a video game. Which he doesn't. He's publishing a comic book for which that trademark is out of scope in any case.

But applying common sense, even a space marine video game ought to be OK, due to earlier use of the generic term. That trademark, even in its limited issue, is preposterous either way.

Tychon's avatar

Likely just incompetence by a in-house paralegal

Dr. Mauser's avatar

Didn't GW ALREADY lose a lawsuit against Maggie Hogarth over her book "Spots the Space Marine"? That was years ago.

J.R. Logan's avatar

I know what my next book order is going to be.