Didn’t somebody try that years ago and get shitcanned by MS’s lawyers for it?
i never heard from the 17 year old owner of ‘mike rowe soft’ again after that lawsuit. was he killed outright, or was loss of his kneecaps enough of a message?
It’s short for “Willcock.”
He gave up the domain in exchange for a free xbox and microsoft letting him live. Sadly, the $10,000 he originally asked for did not happen. That kid was lucky the media picked up on the story.
When my son was born, I created a LiveJournal page called… Ta da… “Gamerdad.”
First post on gamerdad.livejournal.com? 11/06/2002. Nearly eight months before Andrew’s GamerDad site went live.
Disclaimer: I have nothing to do with the Xbox Gamer Dad column. That was in the works long before I joined the group. But I think it’s merely coincidence.
I hope this gets picked up broadly … the goodwill and general perception of Microsoft as anti-consumer evil empire would help …
There was a previous gamerdad (earliest one i could, deja pulls up nothing). Not really used as the trademark declares it, but not the first use of the word online dealing with reviews somewhat, parents and kids.
As a big fan of the REAL Gamerdad site, all I can say is “Go Andrew!”. His site does a real service to parents and I use it often.
Sue those fuckers Andrew. Loss of ad revenue, trademark infringement, etc. I’d be surprised if MS didn’t settle out of court.
Bub’s banned here, he might not be reading this thread.
He has his sources ;) He knows everyone here (and a bunch of other places) is pulling for him!
Surprising Andrew didn’t register the name until this past June. Anyway, any one can register a trade-mark - that doesn’t mean the trade-mark is enforceable, or can withstand a challenge - it just means you claimed the name first. It could well be that nobody is entitled to trade-mark protection of such common words.
Andrew could have actually strengthened his claim if he had added additional words to the title, like “Andrew Bub is Gamer Dad”, or “Andrew Bub’s Gamer Dad”. Then he’d have a better chance of stopping people from using even the common words together in a confusingly similar column.
http://gamerscoreblog.com/team/archive/2006/10/13/537975.aspx
At least one Microsoft employee was aware that there was a gamerdad.com.
MS can’t even plead ignorance.
[Edit : They even said ‘Not to be confused with’. Isn’t that practically admitting that your name could cause confusion?]
Why is he banned?
Long-running disagreements with Tom over Andrew’s desire to regularly promote Gamerdad.com on this forum.
Edit: I should have said “was banned” - dunno if he got unlocked in the move to vBulletin or not.
I’m probably too close to this to stir this up, but I’m pretty bummed. A light bulb went on over my head today…
http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showpost.php?p=761000&postcount=670
Denny, you’re well aware of GamerDad, the site and how Andrew has promoted himself as The GamerDad. Did you have no idea xbox.com was going to do this?
That doesn’t mean much- chances are the person that posted that had nothing to do w/ the whole thing, and has no connection to the department that set it up. Few companies have that sort of intercommunication, let alone a huge corporation. Especially not for something like a little column.
Ouch.
Denny is probably tied up in J Allard’s basement anyway.