EA is doing something good for the gaming community

[Snapple]

You know that con artist who tries to collect royalties from every game with the word "edge" in the title? If you don't, you can read a little bit about it from an old article here.
http://kotaku.com/5273141/trademark-...dge-taken-down

and here
http://kotaku.com/5312534/trademark-...n-%5Bupdate%5D


Well, Electronic Arts is going to use their mega lawyer team to try and take down Tim Langdell's trademark scheme once and for all.
http://kotaku.com/5370359/electronic...lls-trademarks

EA does have a personal motive in this, since Mirror's Edge is one of the games that has been scammed. Or maybe they're doing this for good PR. Or maybe it's as they say, it's a favor to the development community. Whatever the reason EA is getting involved, it will be a good thing if they shut this guy down.

Of course, I question why the trademark office thought in the first place that it was fair to give ownership of a word as common as "edge" to one person. Imagine if someone trademarked "legend." It could get out of hand.

[jcalder8]

I'm guessing that EA is doing this to finally shut this guy up and that they've had a few games over the years that they would have liked to call Edge in some way shape or form and because of this idiot they couldn't. As much as I'd like to believe that they are doing it for the smaller companies out there it all comes down to them just getting sick of this guy bothering them.

I can't wait to see how it all turns out though. I'm actually disappointed that we have to wait until the summer to see the trial.

[kupomogli]

I'm going to trademark the letter A for the title of a video game. Square-Enix will have to pay me royalty three times for the Final Fantasy series.

[Robocop2]

I'm not exactly sure whats more entertaining; the fact that this guy came up with this idea, or that the legal system has entertained this for so long already

[kedawa]

I really hope they take this fuckwad to the cleaners, and then organize a class action dogpile with every other legitimate developer that's been stifled by his bullshit.

[Ed Oscuro]

I'm going to trademark the letter A for the title of a video game.

Rights and registrations generally aren't retroactive.

At least they're not supposed to be - we'll get to find out all the amazing anecdotes about Edge's possible fake-date trademark applications before next August.

[Icarus Moonsight]

If you want to be a full-tilt asshole, then trademark all the vowels... Even sometimes "Y", don't want to give the rhythm genre a possible loophole.

[Ed Oscuro]

If you want to be a full-tilt asshole, then trademark all the vowels... Even sometimes "Y", don't want to give the rhythm genre a possible loophole.

Sorry, Ebn Ozn beat you to that particular punchbowl.

[ScourDX]

Perhaps EA should change the word to 3dg3. Seriously patent & trademark should be abolished. It never benefits anyone except the rich and the greed.

[IcBlUsCrN]

i do find it strange that EA would do anything for the development community , hope they win.

Seriously patent & trademark should be abolished. It never benefits anyone except the rich and the greed.

without it capitalism would not work.

[TonyTheTiger]

Perhaps EA should change the word to 3dg3. Seriously patent & trademark should be abolished. It never benefits anyone except the rich and the greed.

Patent and copyright exist to encourage creativity and innovation. People won't work as hard to actually create anything or develop any ideas if they can't protect their work. To a lesser extent, patent and copyright are also designed to protect the integrity of the product. Trademark, in fact, is specifically designed for this purpose. Imagine if anybody could sell a soda with the "Coca-Cola" logo on it. That creates confusion in the market. Now what if that soda tastes like ass? The real Coca-Cola will suffer for that since people will now associate the shitty soda with the real deal.

[ScourDX]

without it capitalism would not work.

Capitalist never work to begin with. 97% of the world population isn't rich. It never benefits you or me because we aren't making $1 billion/year. If it did, I will support it 100%.

Patent and copyright exist to encourage creativity and innovation. People won't work as hard to actually create anything or develop any ideas if they can't protect their work. To a lesser extent, patent and copyright are also designed to protect the integrity of the product. Trademark, in fact, is specifically designed for this purpose. Imagine if anybody could sell a soda with the "Coca-Cola" logo on it. That creates confusion in the market. Now what if that soda tastes like ass? The real Coca-Cola will suffer for that since people will now associate the shitty soda with the real deal.

I doubt it encourage creativity & innovation. It only encourage "what is mine is mine and yours can go to hell" mentality. It is often abused and discouraging creativity & innovation. Look at all other lawsuit put forth by smaller party who blame big corporation for selling their technology and make profit - Immersion vs Sony case. You don't tell me Sony didn't create their own technology and got sued because someone patten the idea first & no one else can use it. Too me this is pure greed.

[kedawa]

Patents as they exist today are just archaic and stupid. They don't encourage innovation, they just shackle it to an exclusionary licensing model that works against all but the biggest corporations.

If there were no patents, every product would benefit from the freedom to use all of the best design ideas. Ever wondered why so many MP3 players and phones have horrible interfaces, or why game pads have such horrible dpads? Well, you can thank the patent system for that.

Innovation has been going on for as long as humans have existed. Patents exist solely to restrict others from competing with the patent holders.

[Icarus Moonsight]

Regarding the patenting and capitalism tangent, an interesting lecture;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_PVI6V6o-4
Edit because the vid is long: You can skip to about 9 minutes in and get the innovation cost = copy cost part, but the whole thing is pretty good. I first saw this about 2 months ago. Since then, I've forgotten that it's and hour and a half long. Sorry.

I'm not sure whether or not patents are bad in whole, but I do know that the concept is very prone to unethical or misuse.

Edit: Due to the first link requiring a content subscription to get more than the abstract.

[DDCecil]

Edit: NM

[Captainr]

Patents exist solely to restrict others from competing with the patent holders.

Download generation much?

The system certainly needs a face lift--it hasn't changed a lot over the last 100 years--but it's not a restriction on competition.

If I spent 10 years developing the best spring loaded hinge, one that would be used for the rest of time, I'd want to own it for as long as I could.

Maybe socialist or communist much? Eh?

[kedawa]

Brainwashed capitalist much?

To use your own example, what if you spent all that time developing your super duper hinge, only to find out that some corporation with a monstrous patent portfolio had already patented a similar design, and now you can't even manufacture your own design and market it without paying some exorbitant licensing fee?

There's nothing socialist or communist about wanting to freely use whatever concepts and ideas best suit your needs instead of being beholden to the patent despots.

[JunkTheMagicDragon]

what if you spent all that time developing your super duper hinge, only to find out that some corporation with a monstrous patent portfolio had already patented a similar design, and now you can't even manufacture your own design and market it without paying some exorbitant licensing fee?

in that case, your dumb ass just spent all your time designing something someone already had. (it sucks. believe me, i've been there.)

if i come up with a great idea for a product, a patent allows me a temporary monopoly on it to get established and recoup my investment. otherwise i'd build amazing widget #1, sell it for $5, only to have acmecorp see it, build it in china for 10c, sell it for $2.50, and run me out of business simply because of their existing manufacturing base.

i agree that some of the current uses of patent law are distasteful (patent trolling, overly-broad patents), but this system has its purpose.

[Icarus Moonsight]

The thing about patents is, you've already filed the design documentation with a public institution... Anyone can access it easily enough. I don't think it does what is intended at all. In fact, it makes copying much easier and less expensive. Just change the design enough to prevent legal action and bam! You got Xeroxed tech. The whole thing is idiotic. What do I know? I'm just a capitalist. Keep the corporatism and mercantilism thanks. I'm just here for the laissez faire.

[TonyTheTiger]

Brainwashed capitalist much?

To use your own example, what if you spent all that time developing your super duper hinge, only to find out that some corporation with a monstrous patent portfolio had already patented a similar design, and now you can't even manufacture your own design and market it without paying some exorbitant licensing fee?

There's nothing socialist or communist about wanting to freely use whatever concepts and ideas best suit your needs instead of being beholden to the patent despots.

I'm not as well versed in patents as I am in copyright and trademark but I can say this situation does not happen with copyright. If somebody creates a song in Idaho and sticks it in his drawer and 5 years later I happen to come up with the exact same song by just sheer coincidence, that guy cannot stop me from using my song. That's why you see copyright notices on things. Because it lets people know "hey, this is mine."

And, yes, it does encourage innovation and creativity for two reasons. First, people don't want to work for nothing. They want to be fairly compensated for their efforts and would be discouraged from even trying if they knew that Joe Schmoe down the block could easily use their work for his own benefit at the creators' detriment. Second, it protects the integrity of the creation. From a copyright standpoint, if Bruce Springsteen writes a song and puts it out there it would be just plain unfair to him if everybody else starts doing the same song thereby saturating the market and perhaps destroying the potential success the original song could have had.

For every Kotaku story about patent/copyright/trademark gone wrong, there are thousands of situations where the system works just as it should and serves an important purpose. Fixing what problems do exist requires an exacto knife rather than a sledgehammer.