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GW do have a novel called Space Marine that has been in (and out of) publication for quite some time (20 years).

http://www.blacklibrary.com/all-products/Space-Marine.html

 George Spiggott wrote:
GW do have a novel called Space Marine that has been in (and out of) publication for quite some time (20 years).

http://www.blacklibrary.com/all-products/Space-Marine.html

Which as had been discussed (here, there or otherwise), doesn't provide a trademark.

Book titles are a funny thing because they are generally by their nature descriptive. Descriptive terms are not generally allowed to be trademarked. That aspect should probably be extended to include video games and movies - the same logic applies...but Disney lobbies hard and video games ended up getting stuffed into software (which is rarely descriptive) as opposed to a storytelling device.

If they would have had several novels in a series called Space Marine...say something like: Space Marine, Space Marine - The Tartos Campaign, Space Marine - The Final Chapter...that series of novels could be granted a trademark. A single novel though, generally does not allow for a trademark to be granted.

Now above all I would argue that "space marine" as such is too generic, too well-established as being generic and so forth to be a trademark for GW in anything but a very, very narrow market (and even that could be up for debate, depending on jurisdiction) but Spots only started in 2009 - wasn't the 'battles of the space marines" series well under way by then? That would come a lot closer than that single title does in a lot of ways.

Sure - but remember...trademarks are specific.

The trademark for that series would be "Battles of the Space Marines" not "Space Marines" or "Battles". You see that take place with a variety of generally generic terms like that. Each word isn't very specific - but the combination of generic words makes it something less generic (though to be honest - "Battles of the Space Marines" still isn't very specific).

Right.
...Gah, I seem to remember we do afford a term used like that quite a generous measure of protection too. Not my field by a long shot though and that class was over two years ago

 Bolognesus wrote:
Right.
...Gah, I seem to remember we do afford a term used like that quite a generous measure of protection too. Not my field by a long shot though and that class was over two years ago

To some extent, yes - though the level of confusion aspect generally comes into play. If both series of books were more closely related (say something like a 40K setting and then something more like the Starship Troopers hard sci-fi setting of books) marketed to the same demographic...then the closeness in generic terms would be considered more broadly. Since the market for both books are not the same though, a larger deference would be given to the second set of books (or other products) because the likelihood of confusion would be reduced.

You also have to consider the fame aspect. Various companies from auto manufacturers to toy companies have many generic terms trademarked (or names which are surnames). Another company which attempted to say sell "Ford Performance Parts" when the guy who owns the company is named "Ford" will have a steeper hill to climb because there is a significant level of fame behind the Ford brand. In the US at least, the concept of niche fame doesn't provide protection. If you are the #1 seller of left handed spatulas - it really means little against someone who wants to sell right handed spatulas with a similar brand name. The market is too small in order to create real fame as the courts recognize it (which would be average people off the streets as opposed to average gamers from a game store).

Yup, likelyhood of confusion sounds familiar
Quite sure that niche fame would fly here to a significant degree, though (then again we're fethed up in IP law - the concept of fair use is much, much more limited down here for example).

Oh well. bu basically you're saying that even if "space marine" was a novel term coined by GW and they were first with both that single book and that series, all Spots' author would have to do is avoid too much of a likelyhood of confusion and GW still couldn't act? When both are books in Sci-fi? Hmm, it sounds kind of off to me, but good to know

There are broad categories of "stuff" when it comes to the markets. Considering the "Spots" book is described as "Pollyanna meets Starship Troopers" I would guess that it would not have much overlap with a GW book, in terms of readership.

For example, both Snow White and LotR both have dragons, dwarves and the like...which would put them both in the broad fantasy literature genre - but the people who read Snow White and the people who read LotR are not the same people.

If you were to go ahead and punch in pretty much anything into the USPTO trademark search, you will generally find several different registers for the same text mark. However, each of them are selling either different products or to different consumers. Because there isn't a likelihood of confusion - it is all good.

Yes, I know that (sort of) but would Sci-Fi warfare be broad enough to subdivide? Hmm, okay. If that's the case, I understand now

 washout77 wrote:

CurryMaster wrote:
Arn't the dudes in Alien called space marines?

"Colonial Marines"

But yeah, the term Space Marine has been used EVERYWHERE. Starship Troopers used it, countless Sci-Fi books of old used it....now, if they used more than just the term and actually were using Adeptus Astartes Space Marines that would be a bit different...but they aren't....oh GW when will you learn

GW learn something?...now thats heresy