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Litigation Against The Mobilix Mobile Unix Website

Posted by timothy on from the filthy-luchre dept.

powerset writes: "Mobilix has just posted a news item describing a legal challenge from the holder of the 'Asterix' and 'Obelix' trademarks. Despite widespread use of the '-ix' suffix as documented in the note, a quarter million dollars in damages and prison time are being threatened, and the note also mentions a possible connection to the SuSE case."

1 of 21 comments (clear)

  1. Is this yet another frivolous lawsuit? by hectorh · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What I don't understand is how can they argue trademark infrigement, when there are no characters by the name of mobilix in the Asterix and Obelix books list of characters.

    This just sounds to me like an attempt to bully small organizations into submission.

    This is quoted from an interview with Albert Uderzo ( one of the creators of Asterix and Obelix ):

    "For us, like for most French people, what we know of the Gauls begins with Vercingetorix. The 'RIX' at the end of his name means 'king' and is 'REX' in Latin and 'RIX' in Celtic. Not all Gaulish names end with 'IX', but we thought it would be fun to remind people of Vercingetorix. And it was also easier for us to have the Romans with names ending in 'US' and the Gauls with names in 'IX'

    After that we used a similar formula for foreigners - using 'OS' or 'IS' for Greeks. We always enjoyed coming up with names from expressions and puns. This made it a very difficult job for our translators, because they had to create their own names so they would be funny in their language."

    If you don't know much about Asterix and Obelix, it is a comic book about a gaulish (french) village that resists the assault of the roman empire. It was originally written by Rene Goscinny and drawn by Albert Uderzo. Sadly, Rene Goscinny passed away November 5, 1977.

    After that point, Albert Uderzo has become the principal writer and he no longer draws the comics.

    It is my opinion that ever since, the quality of the comic has decreased

    My suspicion is that this lawsuit is one last feeble attempt by Uderzo to make more money. See the following quote of the same interview:

    "Together with three friends, we had created a small publishing company, that was just managing to get by. We didn't make much money, but we sure had a lot of fun."

    Notice that he mentions financial issues twice in a row, which in my opinion expresses his biggest worry.

    I also find it interesting that in the entire official Asterix and Obelix web site there is not one single mention of Rene Goscinny, other than on the copyright line at the page footer, and that he refers to Rene Goscinny as one of his "...three friends,..." What are they hiding???.

    Does anyone have access to the lawsuit documents? I am very interested in reading why they think they deserve to win this lawsuit.