Bethesda vice president Pete Hines has responded to Minecraft creator Notch's comments regarding the ongoing trademark dispute between Zenimax and Mojang.
Bethesda issued a trademark claim back in August regarding Mojang's upcoming project, Scrolls.
"This is a business matter based on how trademark law works and it will continue to be dealt with by lawyers who understand it, not by me or our developers," Hines told Kotaku. "Mojang's public comments have not given a complete picture as it relates to their filings, our trademarks, or events that have taken place.
"Nobody here enjoys being forced into this. Hopefully it will all be resolved soon."
Comments
5So the lawyers are the ones being pissy about the name of a game?
I'm speaking for myself here, but I'm not going to get Scrolls, a game about cards, mixed up with an RPG with no cards in it at all. And it's not even the full name, it's like someone trying to trademark "2" into their title.
Perhaps this is true for everyone. Or perhaps it isn't.
No one is 'getting pissy'. Mojang is seeking to trademark the word 'Scrolls' for a videogame title, and this could very well encroach upon TES's branding. This is one of the less absurd cases of such a type.
If it was just a case of Bethesda enforcing their trademark, it wouldn't involve litigation. They should just file an injunction. You can't trademark a word though. I could make a game called Scrolls as well if I wanted to.
Kind of pathetic for a VP to try and pass off the whole "well I don't know from trademark law" innocent speech. I am not sure who he thinks he is fooling. Lawyers don't autonomously seek litigation without any direction from management.
This is just a case of a big company trying to go after a little company. I'm glad that Mojang has enough capital to defend themselves because Bethesda thought they could just throw their lawyers around and scare the little guy away. Now they have an expensive court battle on their hands that they are going to lose. It has been shown several times in court that you cannot enforce a trademark on a common word.
I think Mojang deserve to win, because I don't think the two terms are confusing enough. But you can enforce a trademark on a common word. Try calling your next game Doom, or Dirt. Not going to work. If you start manufacturing electronics with the word Apple branded on them, you're going to get lawyered to death - rightly so.