Do Morons In A Hurry Play Games On Their iPhones?

from the use-in-commerce? dept

A whole bunch of people have been sending in the story of a guy named Tim Langdell, who claims to own the trademark to the word “edge” when its used in the name of any video game, and has used that to force a popular iPhone game, called EDGE, out of the app store. As the article points out, Langdell’s last game was released in 1994, which makes you wonder if the name is still being used in commerce (a requirement for a trademark claim). And, of course, there’s the question of confusion. Considering how few people have heard of Langdell’s company, was there really any chance that “a moron in a hurry” would confuse a fun block game with Langdell’s title’s like “Snoopy: The Case of the Missing Blanket.” Kotaku points out that Langdell appears to spend a lot more time these days talking to people about how he owns the word “edge” in any video game than producing or selling video games…

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Comments on “Do Morons In A Hurry Play Games On Their iPhones?”

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20 Comments
Another AC says:

Despite my skepticism in other stories, I will wholeheartedly agree that this fellow does not have a viable business model. I give my full sympathy to those who are working hard but can’t quite figure out how to survive in the “internet age”.

I have no sympathy at all for those who do not work hard but rather try to game the system in the internet age to gain an advantage without actually working. My daughter, upon hearing this story, said nothing. Just put her right hand on her forehead with thumb and forefinger in the shape of an “L”. The world would be a much better place if we just laughed these jokers out of town rather than letting them try to exploit the legal system to make a buck without actually working.

Sos says:

Edgy

Mirrors Edge, Edge of Twilight, Edge Of Chaos: Independence War 2, BAJA: Edge of Control, Cross Edge, Circuit’s Edge, Hired Guns: The Jagged Edge, Fantasy Draft Edge Pro Football 2004 and of course the previous failed trademark claim Soul Edge (http://www.ipo.gov.uk/tm/t-decisionmaking/t-challenge/t-challenge-decision-results/t-challenge-decision-results-bl?BL_Number=O/337/02)

Matt (profile) says:

Re: Water as a Trademark...

Funny that you’d say that. I remember waaaaaay back in the halcyon days of yore… Maybe 1992 or so… Someone did, in fact, trademark the word “Water” for use in gaming. I can’t recall the company (note: it wasn’t TSR, I at least remember that much), but I do remember that another company had released a supplement for their game that had the word “water” in the title. To avoid an infringement suit, they had a disclaimer on the front that indicated that they were not affiliated with the company who, apparently, owned the rights to an unproduced game entitled, “Water.”

Apparently, this was SOP for this particular company.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

I was curious about that too. With a little poking around on urban dictionary I found that a metric assload is much more than just an assload. A metric assload is about as much as a shitload. Now a shitload is more than an assload but less than a fuckton. A fuckton of iron has been calculated to be 8.806 * 10^21 kilograms of iron, or 1.941 * 10^22 pounds of iron. So a metric assload is something less than that.

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