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I know there was a 200+ page thread on this and multiple commentary blogs etc on it.
I also know it was resolved but would someone like to sum it up from start to finish with the overall outcome and implications?
It dosent have to be very indepth, just a flavour leaving aside the legal nuances and ins and outs.

Chapterhouse made conversion bit compatible with 40k.
GW Got mad and sued Chapterhouse
Chapterhouse got some very good pro-bono IP lawyers
In court, GW proved to have no idea what it actually owned, and often made a fool of itself.
After several years a ruling was made that basically had a 75/25% split in Chapterhouse's favor over IP violations. Chapterhouse was allowed to use some trademarked terms, but had to pay GW $25k or so.
GW dragged it's heels on the appeals process.
GW then froze Chapterhouse's assets over the $25k, a value less than the total amount GW payed for printing all of it's documents in the case.
Chapterhouse settled with GW after the assets frozen thing to no bring the case to appeals.
Because it didn't go to appeals, not much really happened in the end, but GW got a black eye and might be a little less trigger happy with litigation.


I think I go that tright.

Pretty much.

Worth mentioning that the 25/75% split at the trial didn't include literally hundreds of claims GW made that didn't even make it that far.

If one took those into account, it's probably 90+% against GW.

 Ratius wrote:
I know there was a 200+ page thread on this and multiple commentary blogs etc on it.
I also know it was resolved but would someone like to sum it up from start to finish with the overall outcome and implications?
It dosent have to be very indepth, just a flavour leaving aside the legal nuances and ins and outs.

Oh man...

Yes, someone can do that. I am well equipped to do it (perhaps the best equipped), and I will be happy to do it. That said, it will take some time to provide a decent account of the litigation with sufficient brevity. I don't really have time to do it this weekend, and likely not for the bulk of next week. I can get something together by the 17th, if you are okay waiting a week.

Someone else, such as Czakk or Janthkin, might be able to put something together sooner.

Ah no rush or hassle Weeble, appreciate it. Riven kinda of summed it up (rather bluntly but thats ok).
I was more just seeing if I had the jist of things correct and if it actually did "end".
Also so surprised GW froze CH assets, I vaguely recall hearing they tried to go after his personal wealth? Sheeesh.

 Ratius wrote:
Ah no rush or hassle Weeble, appreciate it. Riven kinda of summed it up (rather bluntly but thats ok).
I was more just seeing if I had the jist of things correct and if it actually did "end".
Also so surprised GW froze CH assets, I vaguely recall hearing they tried to go after his personal wealth? Sheeesh.

Yeah. I vaguely recall weeble making the call that that move was probably a last ditch game of chicken GW played to get out of going to appeal.

weeble1000 wrote:
Yes, someone can do that. I am well equipped to do it (perhaps the best equipped), and I will be happy to do it.

Weeble, given your great contribution to that thread, as well as your sensible advice to others any time any legal issues get raised, it would be superb if you would write a brief like that. It would certainly help the community to have something to reference to when either fresh blood or poor memories ask about these events in a few years time.

Henry wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:
Yes, someone can do that. I am well equipped to do it (perhaps the best equipped), and I will be happy to do it.

Weeble, given your great contribution to that thread, as well as your sensible advice to others any time any legal issues get raised, it would be superb if you would write a brief like that. It would certainly help the community to have something to reference to when either fresh blood or poor memories ask about these events in a few years time.

Weeble, Czakk, Jankthin, and a few others were absolutely priceless in how well they helped decipher the legal complexities of the case and the various court filings. Over the last few years, I feel like I earned a couple of hours of credit towards an education on IP law by following the GW vs CHS thread thanks to those professionals.

I think weeble will do the best job of explaining it, although what's been said so far is pretty accurate. I'd just like to add that for me, one of the big 'events' in the case was chapterhouse getting the hardcore pro-bono representation.

GW has a history of using it's relative power/wealth to threaten lawsuits against a lot of people and up until chapterhouse they got away with it. Just like the chapterhouse case, they usually didn't have a leg to stand on but the people they targeted couldn't afford the legal process to defend themselves. This is essentially the first big time case where gw did their routine and got called on it. Its a pity that chapterhouse didn't go through with the appeal, but that's easier for me to say from my armchair i guess. The end results were still pretty damning against gw, both legally and ethically.

 Torga_DW wrote:
I think weeble will do the best job of explaining it, although what's been said so far is pretty accurate. I'd just like to add that for me, one of the big 'events' in the case was chapterhouse getting the hardcore pro-bono representation.

GW has a history of using it's relative power/wealth to threaten lawsuits against a lot of people and up until chapterhouse they got away with it. Just like the chapterhouse case, they usually didn't have a leg to stand on but the people they targeted couldn't afford the legal process to defend themselves. This is essentially the first big time case where gw did their routine and got called on it. Its a pity that chapterhouse didn't go through with the appeal, but that's easier for me to say from my armchair i guess. The end results were still pretty damning against gw, both legally and ethically.

Don't forget financially. Even the preamble said they spent too much on it and those preambles try to make everything look good.

 MWHistorian wrote:
Don't forget financially. Even the preamble said they spent too much on it and those preambles try to make everything look good.

True. The closest i can come to the case having a 'good' point in their favour was that at least chapterhouse were involved in the sphere of gw's business. That spots the space marine thing really rubbed me the wrong way. GW could still manage okay with the "pants on head crazy" label, but a lot of what they do is outright malicious. I can't find their legal page at the moment, but they used to have pages on their website where they basically copyrighted everything. Like if you buy their product and assemble, say a space marine, you can't post a picture of it online afterwards unless you'd first obtained their written consent. Crazy can be tolerated, malicious can't.

 Torga_DW wrote:
I can't find their legal page at the moment

http://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Intellectual-Property-Policy (linked to in their FAQ)

Thankfully they seem to have toned it down a bit, and most of the things that they don't have legal justification for are presented as requests rather than threats of lawsuits. The only things that stand out is their "don't use our trademarks" demand and their test for "is your model ripping off our IP", two things that the CHS case demonstrated had significantly less legal support than GW likes to think.

Ok Weeble, a synopsis when you are ready good sir, according to the masses
#salute

 Ratius wrote:
Ok Weeble, a synopsis when you are ready good sir, according to the masses
#salute

Will do.

I could do it sooner, but the prospect feels sort of mentally exhausting and I have a jury to strike on Monday. There's more reasons to put together a good end-to-end synopsis than answering your question, and I'd rather get it done right. I'll definitely get it posted by the 17th, maybe sooner.

17th or we file a dakka class action on you brutha.....

Huh. Thats what happened. I was confused about the thing for a while.

Here weeble, have a bunch of exalts for even considering this.

So what did each party get from the process, could someone please summarize?

Apparently CH is still selling the kits as 'GW compatible', so the court allowed that? What are the things that CH had to stop doing? GW got small amount of money, plus a lot of negative reputation?

 prowla wrote:
So what did each party get from the process, could someone please summarize?

Apparently CH is still selling the kits as 'GW compatible', so the court allowed that? What are the things that CH had to stop doing? GW got small amount of money, plus a lot of negative reputation?

Among other things, GW learned what the rest of the world beyond the moat and wall already knew; that people can make after-market parts for your products, and they can mention your product (with appropriate mention of trade marks and such) while selling their own items.

 prowla wrote:
So what did each party get from the process, could someone please summarize?

Apparently CH is still selling the kits as 'GW compatible', so the court allowed that? What are the things that CH had to stop doing? GW got small amount of money, plus a lot of negative reputation?

The short answer about guidance for others is that the trial court made some scary and concerning rulings that should make folks in this industry nervous in general, regardless of anything to do with Games Workshop. I will go into some of those in my summary.

Apart from that, all you really have in the GW v CHS trial result is what the jury decided, and the only glimpse you have into that is a verdict form that gives precious little detail.

That said, the GW v CHS jury tended to be pretty consistent. One point of consistency in the jury's verdict (which was upheld by the trial Judge), was that almost all uses of an alleged GW mark within the context of a qualifying phrase, e.g. 'for use with' 'works well with' 'compatible with', was found to be fair use. This includes the tabs on the CHS website which makes use of marks in this manner, e.g. "Eldar compatible bits," and the CHS slogan, "Specializing in custom bits and sculpts for Warhammer 40,000 and Fantasy."

That's a pretty clear result that is, in my view, perfectly consistent with the law. A caveat here is that this does not make strong precedent within the Seventh Circuit itself, much less outside of it. But that does't matter too much as it is consistent with the way the law should be appropriately applied. A second caveat is that, if I recall correctly, these findings of fact are also consistent with the trial testimony of Andy Jones, which makes trouble for GW should the company attempt to assert its makers against any similar use in the future.

One of the things that was mentioned in the trial was that GW claimed they owned 100% of everything they make because everything is 100% original and from their minds only.

So Space Marines was their creation, Tyranids was their creation, Necrons was their creation. They had no outside influence when making them.

I would have loved to see the judges face if it was brought up that Necrons don't Scream Terminators and Tyranids don't scream Aliens.

But yeah GW claimed those are original ideas and can't be copied.

 RivenSkull wrote:
Chapterhouse made conversion bit compatible with 40k.

Well, there's a helluva lot more to this piece than that.

 cincydooley wrote:

 RivenSkull wrote:
Chapterhouse made conversion bit compatible with 40k.

Well, there's a helluva lot more to this piece than that.

I don't think the Doom of Malantai seer ever showed up in the case did it? I don't remember it anyway.

 Sinful Hero wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

 RivenSkull wrote:
Chapterhouse made conversion bit compatible with 40k.

Well, there's a helluva lot more to this piece than that.

I don't think the Doom of Malantai seer ever showed up in the case did it? I don't remember it anyway.

I think to say it was "because they made conversion bits" is a gross oversimplification.

CHS did and continues to do exactly what it has always claimed "Specializing in custom bits and sculpts for Warhammer 40,000 and Fantasy."

Part of the issue with this case is that it is okay to tell customers the truth about your products, whether or not someone likes that truth. In fact, in the US it is almost always okay to make a true statement.

It's one of those pesky things about freedom.

weeble1000 wrote:
That said, the GW v CHS jury tended to be pretty consistent. One point of consistency in the jury's verdict (which was upheld by the trial Judge), was that almost all uses of an alleged GW mark within the context of a qualifying phrase, e.g. 'for use with' 'works well with' 'compatible with', was found to be fair use. This includes the tabs on the CHS website which makes use of marks in this manner, e.g. "Eldar compatible bits," and the CHS slogan, "Specializing in custom bits and sculpts for Warhammer 40,000 and Fantasy."

That is one of the most important parts. Above all else, when you Google "Space Marine Shoulderpads," for example, GW wants every single result to point to www.games-workshop.com. And GW lost that.

Yes, but if we're talking about quantites and size of egg, CHS got hit by a couple of quayle eggs, while GW had entire squadrons of great eagles from LoTR bombarding them for weeks..

GW used a sledgehammer to crack a nut and mostly missed. Technically they won because they got some rulings in their favour and they prevented the appeal. But it was a very pyrrhic victory. They did far more damage to themselves than CHS and spent far more money than they could possibly have lost to CHS selling bits, if indeed CHS has a negative impact on GW sales at all.

 cincydooley wrote:

Spoiler:

 Sinful Hero wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

 RivenSkull wrote:
Chapterhouse made conversion bit compatible with 40k.

Well, there's a helluva lot more to this piece than that.

I don't think the Doom of Malantai seer ever showed up in the case did it? I don't remember it anyway.

I think to say it was "because they made conversion bits" is a gross oversimplification.

In what way?

I think the above posts have given a fairly good summary overall, though I believe that as pointed out by the relative amounts of money involved I dont think GW ever intended this to be about the money CHS cost them.

Instead they were hoping to make an example of CHS to make sure other bits makers didn't push to far onto GW's perceived market territory. The problems for GW came about when:

1) CHS decided to resist
2) CHS got highly competent pro-bono support
3) GW didn't manage to settle things before it went to court

The end result was GW being less secure in its IP ownership than anybody, especially them, thought. This has forced them to change up some of their policies and work on claiming what they thought was their own IP before others do. It also means they have had to discard a number of units and characters with no direct model representation as they were unable to protect them.