Fellow gamers,
Our purpose in filing for trademark on the name "Pwnage" is not to charge money or stop people from using the expression. That's not what a trademark is for. Instead, we want to protect ourselves from squatters (or what I call campers) - people looking to trademark the name on false pretenses, just to make a claim against Futuremark Games Studio for its use.
-Jukka Mäkinen, Executive Producer, Futuremark
PurePwnage.com - Trademarking "Pwnage"
4 comments:
I'm not really sure this is a good thing. They might have good intentions but if they're able to do it, it means other peoples with perhaps not-so-good intentions can do it too.
True!
I think they wish to name one of their products (an upcoming game?) something with Pwnage, and just protect the name of that game rather than copyright the word itself and refuse everyone else to use it. But I'm not too involved in it to grasp it too well, and don't know how it works with trademarking common words like Pwnage. Will they name is simply "Pwnage" or will it just be part of the name? Will the trademark refuse anyone else from using "Pwnage" in the name of any of their products? Their excuse for doing so seems farfetched, but then again, todays game industry is in a terrible position and constantly under fire from different law suits from everything than modders content to resemblances of furnitures in the games.
The thing is that their intentions are unimportant. Juste knowing they may be able to do so (sue people for "abusive use" of their trademark) makes me feel quite bad.
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