The Third Doctrinal War -- Stardock, Reiche/Ford, and Star Control

UQM isn’t being used in commerce. As long as that doesn’t change, there’s no issue.

I’m not personally suing anyone. Frankly, Thrag, I could really care less what you think. It is pretty clear to me that you don’t understand the topic that is being discussed. I just read your posts for the entertainment value.

Your company is suing P&F personally. You know this. Don’t play coy.

I see that all you have are insults. I’m sure people seeing this behavior on your part will no doubt temper their bad feelings about the episode.

I’m watching you guys back and forth live.

Should I have brought popcorn? :S

I’m sorry, I thought you said something earlier about “Welcome to the Internet”. I didn’t realize you were now very fragile.

I brought enough for both of us. ;)

Really? Okay then. You keep being you and keep on behaving in ways that alienate people for no good reason or discernible benefit to yourself. Continue to not even think for a second about the consequences of your words and actions.

IANAL either, but I’m pretty sure that’s irrelevant (otherwise, I’d be watching new episodes of Star Trek Continues). You should explicitly grant them permission (however that works) for some good will.

EDIT: I remembered, that’s a bad example because of donations. UQM might want some, though.

I disagree with this analysis, and frankly your lawyer probably does too, if they’re being honest and know much about trademark law. But I guess it’s good for the gaming community as a whole if you fail to vigorously enforce your purported trademark, so please keep on that path.

That is the story of my life. ;)

This I agree with. I will see about providing some sort of blanket license to them (not Star Trek continues but UQM).

If it goes to trial, and the judge issues a ruling on the merits of the IP ownership that shows how P&F were wrong and Stardock was right, it would improve my opinion of Stardock, but if Stardock is shown to have made baseless claims about P&F being willful fraudsters, that’s still going to weigh my opinion down quite a bit. And if Stardock were to win by running P&F out of money and forcing them to capitulate before trial, that would be about the worst possible result as to my opinion of the company. Not that I think Brad is going to lose a lot of sleep over my opinion, of course. :-)

P&F re-registered their copyright to SC2 in April, after obtaining copyright assignments from most of the other SC2 team members. Given how Stardock is trumpeting the (admittedly unprofessional sounding) email exchange between P&F’s lawyer and the copyright office during their first registration, one can infer from Stardock’s lack of commentary that the second one probably went more smoothly.

How did the word ‘Orz’ acquire the secondary meaning necessary for it to be considered an indicator of the source of a good, as opposed to just a descriptor for a fictional race?

Well, at least you’re acknowledging that it’s part of an “aggressive” legal strategy. But why resort to such clearly unpopular measures? If you are confident that your “Star Control” trademark is incontestable, you could just let their attempt fail, as the judge would surely throw it out. Taking aggressive measures like this in response just makes it look like you’re grasping for leverage to try to make P&F back down before their claim reaches court.

Moreover, even if P&F do cancel the original trademark, how does that harm you, really? You can file (and have actually already filed) a new one on “Star Control” that would fully protect SC:O and any future games you create. The only difference is that it would technically be a new “Star Control” product line instead of a continuation of the old one. Is that difference really worth the mountain of ill-will these tactics are generating?

As do I. There are plenty of examples of non-commercial open-source projects owning trademarks. There is even case law saying that unincorporated associations of individuals can own trademarks.

I seem to recall getting scoffed at when I proposed such a blanket license on the Stardock forums a few months ago. I’m glad to hear that you might reconsider.

Do let us know if he follows through. I did read the posts you are referring to and you were basically dismissed and mocked for even suggesting such a thing was possible. If this is actually followed up on, and not just more bullshit said for public consumption like all the transparent “I don’t know what might have possibly offended anyone and I’m just so sorry” statements that we’ve seen it would boost my opinion of Stardock slightly.

Actions do matter.

In fairness, it may not be possible. I know that blanket licenses have been done with copyrights and patents, but trademarks could have different rules that preclude them. All I was suggesting in that forum was that he actually check with his lawyers on the possibility.

To be clear, the legal issues alienate you and a handful of people on this board, generating prejudice against SD. But on other boards, such as on the eXplorminate one on Steam, the views are more supportive (and often as comically analytical with IANAL disclaimers) of SD than P&F.

I occasionally like dipping in either to see what the very local mob is up in arms about. Normally not to stir the pot, but just observe. It’s a nerd’s version of fake news, the alt-right/left, the deep state, SJW, the world is going to hell, what-have-you.

My hunch, however, is that most potential customers of either developer don’t care, or even know about the case. I’m very skeptical it makes any dent on final sales, assuming a ruling that allows publication. It might even be good for sales.

I find these repeated swipes at a fellow QT3 user uncalled for. In this thread, we’re all trying to keep a civil (but clearly not uncritical) discussion going. Dismissing one of the participants like this again does you no favours.

I don’t think this can be decided before the case is settled/goes to trial, considering that the dispute is ongoing? I mean, if Stardock ends up losing the trademark, it won’t help the UQM project if Stardock extends some kind of licence to you, right? But if the holder of the trademark – whoever that will be eventually – can safeguard the continued development of UQM that would obviously be a good thing.

I think the proposal by the YouTube lawyer, in the video shared earlier, would be a good solution, even though it would entail Stardock essentially selling back the trademark to P&F, and I don’t think Brad would go for that (but I’m happy to be proven wrong). I’d obviously prefer it if the original creators (viz. P&F) would get all of their IP back. As was discussed earlier, there isn’t really a reason why Stardock’s game had to be Star Control: Origins, rather than, say, Galactic Civilizations: Adventures or something like that.

Emphasis mine. Truly, it’s like night and day here and there.

I thought that was what was originally offered?

If the “Star Control” trademark is found to be invalid or inapplicable to anything but the phrase “Star Control”, then there’s no legal threat by anyone, so that’s the best case result; any blanket license would then just be superfluous. The project has been running for the last 15 years under the assumption that there weren’t any relevant trademarks, so this is just the status quo.

There’s no chance of P&F getting control of the “Star Control” trademark, because they haven’t asked for it.

Well, since P&F started the project, I think we can be pretty sure of them being supportive of it, should any relevant trademarks (such as “The Ur-Quan Masters”) fall into their hands. Honestly, I think they most likely would simply not bother enforcing them, such that they eventually became unenforceable…which would be fine with us as noted above.

I don’t think there’s any chance of either party being interested, for reasons I discuss here.

Remember that cancelling the “Star Control” trademark has very little effect other than to keep Stardock from attacking GotP or UQM. They can still release SC:O under that name, and (once their new registration goes through) defend “Star Control” as their mark.

@Nightgaunt has done an excellent work curating a timeline with plenty of directly linked resources.

Courtesy is a two-way street. You and I clearly have different standards of what we consider civil discourse.

RE UQM: If the project was set up as some sort of foundation or other actual entity, then the trademark could simply be transferred to that entity under the terms and conditions that it not be used commercially. That way, no one can mess with the project or use it for legal shenanigans.

Frankly I thought those swipes were hilarious. I guess he was real wound up from apparently spending all day arguing with people on part 3 of that youtube video. At least I got some insight into why he thinks so many people are against him out of personal dislike. He intentionally goes out of his way to try to irritate people and then plays the victim card and laments how everyone is just against him.

If this is the public face he wishes to present to the world I see no reason to stop him.