The Perseverance of a Trademark Troll

Sockatume writes "Eurogamer has published an article on Tim Langdell's battle against the Edge iPhone game. Langdell, a British entrepreneur, founded Softek (later renamed The Edge, Edge Games and Edge Interactive Media Inc.) in the 1980s as a venture to fund game development, with profits to be split 50/50 with the developers. He moved to California in the 1990s in the wake of accusations of failing to pay his developers. Now a professor in games studies at National University, an IGDA board member, and a former member of BAFTA-LA's board, 'Dr.' Langdell spends his time accusing people of infringing his trademarks and offering to settle. After delivering a settle-or-die ultimatum to Edge publisher Mobigames (detailed in the article), he has convinced Apple to pull the game from the App Store. Mobigames is preparing to strike back: their lawyer believes that his trademarks are 'liable to be revoked.' Langdell has had a spate of bad press lately as other trademark disputes come to light, involving entities ranging from EA Games to Britain's venerable Edge Magazine (source of Edge Games' logo and now registering its own Edge trademark). He has never actually prevailed in a trademark hearing."

Comments

Re:Obscurity isn't a valid defense

[BadAnalogyGuy]

I'm not sure you're familiar with trademark law in the United States either. Your definition of "use" is unclear and its applicability in this case is questionable.

Let's see what the experts say: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/metaschool/fisher/domain/tm.htm

3. What prerequisites must a mark satisfy in order to serve as a trademark?
An arbitrary or fanciful mark is a mark that bears no logical relationship to the underlying product. For example, the words "Exxon," "Kodak," and "Apple" bear no inherent relationship to their underlying products (respectively, gasoline, cameras, or computers). Similarly, the Nike "swoosh" bears no inherent relationship to athletic shoes. Arbitrary or fanciful marks are inherently distinctive -- i.e. capable of identifying an underlying product -- and are given a high degree of protection.

So the trademark "Edge" in reference to games is, given the history of the company, inherently distinctive and thus fulfills the requirements for being a trademark.

4. How do you acquire rights in a trademark?
Assuming that a trademark qualifies for protection, rights to a trademark can be acquired in one of two ways: (1) by being the first to use the mark in commerce...

Again, Langdell seems to have this base covered so far as anyone can prove.

Here we get to the crux of your post.

6. Can trademark rights be lost?
A trademark is abandoned when its use is discontinued with an intent not to resume its use. Such intent can be inferred from the circumstances. Moreover, non-use for three consecutive years is prima facie evidence of abandonment. The basic idea is that trademark law only protects marks that are being used, and parties are not entitled to warehouse potentially useful marks.

But if you take a look, Edge Games has a website, claims to be developing games, and is in no way abandoning its trademark to genericity. So while your claim that Edge Games hasn't released something for years may be true, it may not be relevant.