Aihuxn.145
net.games.rogue
utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!duke!chico!harpo!floyd!houxi!ihnss!ihuxn!otto
Sat Feb 20 00:46:02 1982
Who controls the use of xorn, etc.
The question of protection for names has been, as I understand the
situation, dealt with legally and certain rules have been developed.
The reason why names such as "scotch tape" and "cellophane" are no
longer under the control of those who invented them is because they did
not aggressively defend their rights to them when the names were used by
others, especially when used in a business context.
Xerox, on the other hand, has apparently taken sufficient legal action
to demonstrate to the courts that it has fought unrestricted use of its
name in a business context. Maybe we should set up a test situation,
selling paper as "Xerox Paper" to see how long it takes someone
from Xerox to get in touch with us about our use of their name.
As I understand it, many of the monster names in AD&D were invented by
Gary Gygyx(sp?), and therefore he has control over the use of them
unless he loses that right through failure to defend it. Since TSR is
making money on these names through licensing agreements with various
companies, it seems this is an important question to be resolved by all
concerned.
Perhaps this should be taken up in net.free-legal-advice (worth every
penny paid for it).
George Otto
Bell Labs, Indian Hill
ihnss!ihuxi!otto
----------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------
gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen <
[email protected]>
of
http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/
This Usenet Oldnews Archive
article may be copied and distributed freely, provided:
1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles.
2. The following notice remains appended to each copy:
The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996
Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.
