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games industry

The Wicked Edge is Dead!

Frabjous:

The court has denied Edge Games’ motion for injunction, citing that it believes that Langdell made fraudulent statements to the US Patent and Trademark Office and strongly believes that Langdell is “suspect,” and has been “trolling” the game industry for licensing opportunities. His actions could possibly warrant “criminal penalties.”

An EA spokesperson told us the company is “pleased with the opinion issued by the court. We hope that this case serves as a milestone in protecting independent developers from nuisance litigation.”

Although I’m not keen on schadenfreude, I’m genuinely pleased to see the US PTO finally smack him down, after years of being caught napping. Tim always seemed a nice enough guy in person, but I found his (publically reported) trademark actions simply vile. His extensive lies and disingenuous claims of being a game developer just added insult to injury.

In other news … with this, EA may finally have recovered brand normality from the long after-effects of EA-Spouse.

3 replies on “The Wicked Edge is Dead!”

Well, it’s not really over. The barrier for an injunction is high, and rising, precisely to prevent patent trolling. Some of the language the judge used is…pretty extraordinary, though.

If he backs down, and EA let him off the hook, he might still get away with only losing the trademarks…

This – in an official statement from the USPTO – makes it *extremely* unlikely he will ever hit anyone ever again with a trademark case … of any kind.

You don’t really need a lawyer now; all you have to do is respond to any docs with a reference back to this judgement.

As you point out … whether Tim will get his comeuppance is another matter entirely. Although I believe EA will see “sending him down” as a cheap form of positive brand advertising – I think it’s likely they’ll see this through to the end.

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