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Steelmage99 wrote:

agnosto wrote:Weeble: I'm not 100% certain but I think Paulson was included in the suit because of the "Heavy Walker" that is for sale on the CH website. I think someone mentioned early on that GW was under the impression that Paulson had something to do with its design.

There is no doubt that weeble1000 is well aware of that.....and that wasn't what his post was about at all.

If it was a rhetorical question then I'm afraid I missed the point.

agnosto wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:

agnosto wrote:Weeble: I'm not 100% certain but I think Paulson was included in the suit because of the "Heavy Walker" that is for sale on the CH website. I think someone mentioned early on that GW was under the impression that Paulson had something to do with its design.

There is no doubt that weeble1000 is well aware of that.....and that wasn't what his post was about at all.

If it was a rhetorical question then I'm afraid I missed the point.

Weeble's question wasn't rhetorical at all. It was referring to this quote from the GW statement:

"Paulson Games and Games Workshop have agreed on the range of products Paulson Games is permitted to sell without violating Games Workshop’s claimed rights in its Warhammer 40,000 characters..."

Considering this statement, we could discover some very interesting information if we could see a list of items for sale by Paulson both before and after the settlement. Any items that were removed would be items that were agreed to be infringing upon GW's IP/Copyright/whatever. Items that were available for sale both before and after the settlement will, therefore, have been admitted by GW to not infringe up GW's IP/Copyright/whatever.

This would be interesting to compare to CHS's situation if we could interpret a list of allowable precedents from the Paulson settlement.

weeble1000 wrote:
"Paulson Games and Games Workshop have agreed on the range of products Paulson Games is permitted to sell without violating Games Workshop’s claimed rights in its Warhammer 40,000 characters..."

Presumably, then, Games Workshop agrees that everything currently for sale on Paulson's website (www.paulsongames.com) does not violate GW's claimed rights. There could of course be some type of license agreement, but I personally doubt that.

The question this raises is: What was for sale on Paulson's website prior to the settlement that is not currently offered for sale on the website, if anything? Admittedly, I haven't been scrutinizing Paulson's website. Is anybody able to provide some insight about that?

I know at one point, but I don't know if it was pre or post GW lawsuit, Paulson had some nice claws for bipedal combat walkers, as well as at least one sci-fi spaceship with a peaked prow. Those are gone, but again, I don't know if it was a result of the suit.

IIRC, the only thing GW took offense to was paulsons involvment in the not-Tau heavy walker chapterhouse sells.

Since he actually had no involvment at all in it, and nothing else of his was listed, he probably wasn't asked to remove anything. But he was smart enough to remove all pictures of GW models from his site before it all went down (he used to have shots of his not-Tyranid stuff on Tyranid warriors). He has taken stuff down on his own - like his not-Tyranid lash whip, which he's redoing.

Scott-S6 wrote:

azazel the cat wrote:Long story short: five years from now, you're going to buy your Space Marines not from GW, but from a Chinese company, and those Space Marines will be indistinguishable from the official GW models. And if you think that GW can go to the mattresses to stop this, then you should use Google to determine how many Disneyland theme parks there are in the world.

Why five years?

Five years is an almost arbitrary number representing the amount of time I think it'll take GW's consumer base to become so fed up with Finecast and rising prices that the sub-market will become large enough to allow the piracy to actually become profitable at a balance with a quality of product that said consumer base will be willing to purchase.

Scott-S6 wrote:If we were to get models from china that were identical to the normal ones (like azazel the cat has suggested) then they'd need to be multi-part injected models. Never going to happen. There are plenty of injection moulded toys and models that outsell GW (Gundam, Transformers, etc) and we're not seeing direct copies of those.

You don't actually believe that, do you?
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/G1-Transformers-Universe-KO-Prime-Ultra-Magnus-NMOC-/160662699000?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item25683e3bf8#ht_4008wt_1007
Because I think The Changeable Just Leader begs to differ...


EDIT: Link works now

Saldiven wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:The question this raises is: What was for sale on Paulson's website prior to the settlement that is not currently offered for sale on the website, if anything? Admittedly, I haven't been scrutinizing Paulson's website. Is anybody able to provide some insight about that?

The only thing I can see (because it's the only thing I look at) is the bio-tendrils (lash whips) but he has a blog post saying they'll be gone for a re-design/recast.

It would be incredible if someone had a cached copy of the site's pages from before now so we could see a side by side comparison. I'm really interested to see what, if anything, that Paulson was forced to remove.

The Way Back Machine has a few caches of Paul's site. Rigeld2 was correct as far as I can see. The only thing missing are the Bio-Tendrils.

azazel the cat wrote:

Scott-S6 wrote:If we were to get models from china that were identical to the normal ones (like azazel the cat has suggested) then they'd need to be multi-part injected models. Never going to happen. There are plenty of injection moulded toys and models that outsell GW (Gundam, Transformers, etc) and we're not seeing direct copies of those.

You don't actually believe that, do you?
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/G1-Transformers-Universe-KO-Prime-Ultra-Magnus-NMOC-/160662699000?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item25683e3bf8#ht_4008wt_1007
Because I think The Changeable Just Leader begs to differ...


EDIT: Link works now

Even more, one of the following is a direct copy KO, no size or mold alterations like the above example. See if you can tell me which one:





However, this isn't really relevant to the actual case being discussed, as they're not fighting about KO's but add on kits.

spaceelf wrote:

Saldiven wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:The question this raises is: What was for sale on Paulson's website prior to the settlement that is not currently offered for sale on the website, if anything? Admittedly, I haven't been scrutinizing Paulson's website. Is anybody able to provide some insight about that?

The only thing I can see (because it's the only thing I look at) is the bio-tendrils (lash whips) but he has a blog post saying they'll be gone for a re-design/recast.

It would be incredible if someone had a cached copy of the site's pages from before now so we could see a side by side comparison. I'm really interested to see what, if anything, that Paulson was forced to remove.

The Way Back Machine has a few caches of Paul's site. Rigeld2 was correct as far as I can see. The only thing missing are the Bio-Tendrils.

Hrm, so what do you think, legal types? If everything that remains on Paulson's website has been agreed by GW to not be a violation of GW's IP, what can that tell us about other circumstances, specifically about what may or may not be the target of GW's suit against CHS? Or, since we do not have the specifics of the agreement, is there just not enough information to say?

Saldiven wrote:Hrm, so what do you think, legal types? If everything that remains on Paulson's website has been agreed by GW to not be a violation of GW's IP, what can that tell us about other circumstances, specifically about what may or may not be the target of GW's suit against CHS? Or, since we do not have the specifics of the agreement, is there just not enough information to say?

From the text of the agreement (what we've seen), everything on Paulson's site is either (a) not infringing on GW's intellectual property rights; or (b) licensed by GW. So I'll take the "not enough information" path.

If we could see what Paulson pulled then we would see what products GW believed were infringing and wasn't willing to license.

biccat wrote:

Saldiven wrote:Hrm, so what do you think, legal types? If everything that remains on Paulson's website has been agreed by GW to not be a violation of GW's IP, what can that tell us about other circumstances, specifically about what may or may not be the target of GW's suit against CHS? Or, since we do not have the specifics of the agreement, is there just not enough information to say?

From the text of the agreement (what we've seen), everything on Paulson's site is either (a) not infringing on GW's intellectual property rights; or (b) licensed by GW. So I'll take the "not enough information" path.

If we could see what Paulson pulled then we would see what products GW believed were infringing and wasn't willing to license.

That's kind of what I figured. I was hoping there might be a tidbit of information that might shed some light on how this whole CHS thing might turn out, but I guess without the text of the settlement, there's no way to know.

While I strongly agreed with biccat that there's really not enough information to go on when I started writing this post, I took a look at Paulson's blog just now..

On November 2nd Paulson posted the following on his website's blog:

Just giving a heads up to everyone that several of the parts are going to be discontinued.

As of Nov 7th the Bio-Swords and Monster Bio-Swords will no longer be in production.

I only have a small handful of these left, once they are sold they will not be restocked, peroid.



Some of my other parts are going to have some changes made so they may not be available for a while. They will be relisted once the new versions are finished. After the 7th the original sculpts will not be made available again.

The items reciveving resculpts will be:

Bio-Terror

Riding Wolves ( full kit version)

Bio-Tendril



If you are in need of any of these parts for your projects I suggest getting the orders in ASAP.

That was posted prior to the court-ordered settlement conference that took place on November 7th. The post does, however, specifically mention the November 7th date:

"As of Nov 7th the Bio-Swords and Monster Bio-Swords will no longer be in production."

"After the 7th the original sculpts will not be made available again."

The parties submitted a joint stipulation of dismissal on November 7th. Paulson's November 2nd blog post therefore seems to specifically indicate which products were involved in the settlement. I think one can infer from this that the products currently offered for sale on the website were not considered to be infringing, at least not in their current form.

The Way Back Machine crawled Paulson's site on Feb 7th 2011. That was prior to an initial status hearing on the case, which was originally scheduled on Feb 28th, 2011. However, I was only able to pull up an August 30, 2010 cache. That said, It appears that the riding wolf sculpts are the same, except that they are no longer supplied with the same bases. I don't have time to dig through the rest of the site at the moment, or to check to see if Paulson mentioned some other reason for removing the originally supplied bases. Edit: I think Paulson used to sell the riding wolves with saddles and legs. In the comment section of the post he wrote the following:

The discontinued items are all gone I no longer have copies in stock. The wolf rider saddles are being resculpted and the full kit version should be made available again in January. The same applies for the Bio-Tendrils, expect an updated version in Jan.

It makes more sense that GW would have had problems with that. If anyone can dig up a more recent cached version of the site pre-settlement, I think it would be illustrative.

So, although I still agree with biccat that there's not enough information to be conclusive, I think that there is enough information to make a reasonable, if tentative, inference that the product alterations mentioned in the November 2nd blog post were part of Paulson's settlement with Games Workshop. It would be interesting to see if anyone else could turn up additional information.

This post from Paulson is also consistent with a confidentiality agreement related to an out of court settlement:

Hi Guys, As it's already after the 7th those parts are no longer available and I'm sorry but I can't sell you any copies. I can't discuss their cancellation any further. Thanks, Paulson Games

The Not-Grotesques seem to have gone from Paulson's site, shame since they were pretty good!

I removed the cast resin bases from the wolves as they take extra time to cast and it's easier to use plastic ones which I've started using in their place. No big mystery behind it, it just helped cut down the time commitment for making those models which also allowed me to lower the wolf prices a bit as well.

I had them available seperately for a while but there wasn't much interest so I took them down. I also had hex bases available but they likewise weren't generating much interest and were removed. If people want them I can always run off more copies.


I've had a small handful of other items available that are no longer on the site (due to slow sales), however those were phased out and removed 6-10 months before the suit was filed.

.

Recap is showing new documents. It looks like doc 141 has a transcript of the Dec 19th hearing.

Still only goes to 139 for me. Edit: Nevermind, I found it. http://ia600405.us.archive.org/18/items/gov.uscourts.ilnd.250791/gov.uscourts.ilnd.250791.docket.html

Document 140:

MINUTE entry before Honorable Matthew F. Kennelly: The Court has reviewed the materials submitted by plaintiff for in camera review. The materials consist of plaintiff's settlement agreement with defendant Paulson, correspondence reflecting negotiation of the settlement, and a small amount of earlier correspondence regarding procedural matters. It appears that all of the correspondence is between plaintiff's counsel and Paulson's counsel, not Paulson himself. The settlement and correspondence relating to it are subject to a confidentiality agreement contained within the settlement agreement. Based on the Court's review, none of the correspondence is admissible or likely to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence, and thus the Court declines to direct plaintiff to produce those materials. Though the settlement agreement itself is likely inadmissible under Rule 408, the Court directs plaintiff's counsel to produce a copy of the agreement to defendant Chapterhouse's counsel of record. Defense counsel are prohibited from disclosing the agreement or information about its contents to anyone other than defendant's outside counsel of record in this case, Paulson himself, and Paulson's counsel of record, unless the Court orders otherwise based on a showing of good cause made by defense counsel. Any filings containing information about the agreement must be made under seal and are likewise subject to the prohibition contained in the previous sentence. (mk) (Entered: 12/30/2011)

Doesn't look too important just a recognition of Paulson's exit from the horse and pony show this case has devolved into and the usual exchange of information.

Document 141:

MOTION by Defendant Chapterhouse Studios LLC to compel discovery responses and privilege log by a prompt date certain (Attachments: # 1 Declaration of Thomas J. Kearney & Exhibits A - G, # 2 Declaration of Jennifer A. Golinveaux & Exhibits A - E, # 3 Certificate of Service)(Kearney, Thomas) (Entered: 01/10/2012)

Which is followed by GW's opposition of the motion to compell and then a prompt motion to seal certain items.

Just more maneuvering looks to me.

Yep, 139 for me as well, any chance of a basic outline of what was said?

Cheers

Andrew


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ta very much.

Andrew

Just read 143.2 and have decided that I am in love with Jennifer Golinveau (don't tell my wife). That lady has the patience of Job dealing with an apparently illiterate opposing counsel.

Maybe one of our legal eagles can clarify if they're talking about the same thing because it seemed to me that Jennifer kept saying that they're ready for a custodial deposition and Jonathan kept saying that she was delaying and failing to agree to a document custodial...

Boggled.

It seems as if GW counsel's primary and only strategy is to obfuscate and delay. I suppose it's a good thing I'm not a judge because these childish antics would certainly anger me to the point of reporting both parties to the BAR....and then I'd report to the bar for a drink.

I have to say I did like the complaint about the document request served just before Xmas. Karmic retibution?

Agnosto, to be fair both sides are 'obfuscating and delaying'

Cheers

Andrew

agnosto -

The Northern District of Illinois has a local rule (37.2) that states the following:

"To curtail undue delay and expense in the administration of justice, this court shall hereafter refuse to hear any and all motions for discovery and production of documents under Rules 26 through 37 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, unless the motion includes a statement (1) that after consultation in person or by telephone and good faith attempts to resolve differences they are unable to reach an accord, or (2) counsel's attempts to engage in such consultation were unsuccessful due to no fault of counsel's. Where the consultation occurred, this statement shall recite, in addition, the date, time and place of such conference, and the names of all parties participating therein. Where counsel was unsuccessful in engaging in such consultation, the statement shall recite the efforts made by counsel to engage in consultation."

What you see in most of the motions and cross motions in this case is back and forth arguments regarding rule 37.2 requirements. The parties often present the same e-mail chains as exhibits supporting contrary arguments regarding rule 37.2.

With regard to the depo discussion you mentioned, the depo is under Rule 30(b)6. Basically, when you notice or subpoena an organization, the organization nominates one or more persons to testify on its behalf, and explains what matters the individuals are responsible for testifying about. In other words, a corporate rep.

The dispute between the parties, in a nutshell, is whether or not the parties had agreed to mutual 30(b)6 depos, as well as the issue of joint document production.

The Defendant basically argues that the Court directed the parties to set dates for joint document production, but that the Plaintiff has been obstructing this process by refusing to discuss dates. The Defendant argued to the Court that, under local rule 37.2(2), it had attempted to engage in consultation but was unsuccessful due to no fault of its own, i.e. genuine attempts were made to resolve the dispute, but the Plaintiff refused to engage in fruitful discussion about it.

The Plaintiff basically argues that the Defendant is being obstructive by linking its own discovery obligations to those of the Plaintiff. In other words, the Plaintiff says that the Defendant will deliberately not produce documents until the Plaintiff does so. The Plaintiff argues that there is no basis for this, and that the Defendant is being deliberately obstructive, and thus not meeting its obligations under local rule 37.2. In other words, the Plaintiff says that it is the Defendant's own fault that attempts to engage in consultation were unsuccessful. The depo issue is essentially the same. The Plaintiff argues that the Defendant had ample opportunity to produce the custodian for a short deposition via telephone, but refused to do so on the grounds that the parties had agreed to mutual 30(b)6 depositions.

The Defendant has submitted a motion to compel, basically on the grounds that time is running out and the Plaintiff is holding up the show.

The Plaintiff opposes that motion by arguing that the Defendant did not meet its 37.2 requirements, and that the Defendant is the party holding up the show. It says that the Plaintiff has every reason to proceed with discovery in a timely manner, and that the Defendant is the party to whom delay is beneficial. It argues that the Defendant is attempting to delay discovery with unmerited motion practice which requires the Plaintiff to spend time responding to, thus preventing it from proceeding with discovery. The Plaintiff has cross-motioned to compel on the basis that if the Defendant wants to handle failure to produce discovery with motion practice, it is pleased to oblige because the Defendant, despite being a smaller entity with more significant representation, has been even more delinquent in its responsibilities than it has accused the Plaintiff of being.

That should just about sum up what the dispute is about. You'll have to decide for yourself who you agree or disagree with. The above is certainly a summary, and therefore an incomplete picture of the relevant documents, but that is the gist of what each party has argued to the Court.

Thanks Weeble, that was very informative and helped clarify the situation for me.

I enjoy reading the e-mails and thought it odd how informal Plaintiff counsel was in responses. Actually, all parties are more informal than I would expect given the circumstances and the fact that anything they type could wind up strung all over the internet.

I remember thinking "Why would anyone care if you're sitting in your kitchen, reading the e-mail?"

It appears that CH's motion to compel discovery responses was denied. A status hearing is set for 3/20/2012.

GW's legal counsel has submitted the revised complaint. There are some jewels in the document that I'm sure the defense's counsel will have a field day with:

None of the foregoing copyrighted works created in the United Kingdom are
United States works for which registration is required under 17 U.S.C. § 411(a)

Yeah because your foreign copyrights hold so much cred here...

Games Workshop also has a large number of well-known unregistered trade
marks (including names of armies, Chapters, and other products) including without limitation:
Adeptus Mechanicus, Assault, Alpha Legion, Black Templars, Blood Angels, Blood Ravens,
Cadian, Carnifex, Chaos Space Marines, Chaplain, Chimera, Crimson Fists, Dark Angel, Death
Case: 1:10-cv-08103 Document #: 147 Filed: 01/19/12 Page 8 of 25 PageID #:15404847-7177-8316
9
Watch, Devastator, Dreadnought, Drop Pod, Eldar, Elder Farseer, Eldar Jetbike, Eldar Warlock,
Eldar Seer Council, Empire, Exorcist, Flesh Tearers, Gene Stealer, Grenade Launcher, Halberd,
Heavy bolter, Heresy Armour, Hellhound, High Elf, Hive Tyrant, Horus Heresy, Howling
Banshee, Imperial Fists, Imperial Guard, Inquisition, Iron Hands, Jetbike, Jump Pack, Land
Raider, Land Speeder, Legion of the Damned, Librarian, Lightning Claw, Melta, Mk II Armour,
Mk V Armour, Plasma, Predator, Rhino, Salamander, Scorpion, Soul Drinker, Space Wolves,
Stormraven, Storm Shield, Tactical, Techmarine, Termagants, Terminator, Thousand Sons,
Thunder Hammer, Tyrant, Tyranid Warrior.

Emphasis mine. So, why are we here again? Oh yeah, trademark infringement on items that aren't trademarked. Great. But I guess that's where dilution comes in.

Many of the symbols associated with the characters and armies of the
WARHAMMER 40,000 universe, as well as the accessories for these characters and armies,
have also become well-known and immediately recognizable to the many fans of the game as
used on and in connection with the respective characters, including without limitation: skulls,
Wings (eagle wings, angel wings), Lions, Griffon, Triptychs, Broadswords, Skull with horns,
Storm bolter (gun) Sawblade with blood-drop, Clenched fist in a gauntlet, Snakes, Flaming
skulls, Flaming chalice, Salamander, Dragon/salamander scales pattern, Tau Symbol, Tau - Oval
vents, Tau - X marking on power/ammo packs, Tau – circle with diagonal line through it, Tau –
geometric grooves, Roman numerals (combined with) arrows, X crosses and inverted V, Cog,
Iron hands icon – gauntleted left hand shown palm downwards, Overlapping/banded armour,
Wolf fur, Wolf skulls, Wolf tails, Raven wings with blood drop in centre, I symbol (for
Inquisition), Scarab beetles, Spirit stones, Eldar iconography/symbols (seer icons etc), Eldar -
Spirit Stones, Eldar – decorative gems on weapons.

More nonsense, yeah we own such things as broadswords and putting x's on equipment....even skulls with horns...yeah nobody would ever think of that...or decorative gems on weapons; who other than most medieval cultures would think to put gems on weapons?

I especially love this next part:

The very name “Chapterhouse” is a direct reference to Games Workshop’s
proprietary Space Marines characters from the WARHAMMER 40,000 game, each of which
Case: 1:10-cv-08103 Document #: 147 Filed: 01/19/12 Page 10 of 25 PageID #:15424847-7177-8316
11
belongs to a specific “Chapter” (of which there are many), with each Chapter having its own
unique expressions, such as its own heraldry and iconography

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Dune was written before GW came along with their Marine "Chapters" and I've never heard "Chapterhouse" mentioned in relation to any GW produced fluff or material (but I admit I haven't ready all that much they produce).

Be sure to read part 37; it cracked me up. Since they allude to ownership of the term "Carnifex" wow, they own the whole Latin language now? Great.

This:

On information and belief, Paulson entered his agreement with Chapterhouse for
the “Super-Heavy Assault Walker” because of an inability to satisfy great consumer demand for
the product, which Chapterhouse now sells at retail for $285

How'd Paulson make it into the amended document? And I thought he had nothing to do with the walker anyway...

Exacerbating the injury to Games Workshop’s reputation, the quality of many of
Defendants’ products is materially inferior to the quality of Games Workshop’s originals, which
will cause injury to Games Workshop’s reputation among purchasers of Defendants’ products in
the original or secondary markets.

LoL. No need for a small company to injure GW's reputation, Finecast did that for them...

I could go on but I'll let you all read and comment. I am still amazed that they're claiming copyright to things that are obviously public domain such as inverted Vs, Xs, snakes, swords, etc...

Wow, how can lawyers so dumb and incompetent make so much money in USA? The judge should stopp them before he makes himself ridiculous.

I guess, Winston & Strawn LLP sees this lawsuit as comical relieve
And Paulson should sue GW for deliberately making false statements about him.

LMFAO, I love the un-regestered, Assault and Skull with Horns.... sorry GW satan wants his Skull with Horns back, you going to send him a C&D or take him to court?

Actually, honestly looking at those motions, this is sad. It's so sad to see the company I once loved just make fools out of themselves this much. I don't think the F&L lawyers are this idotic, this has to be from GWHQ.

In all honesty I just want to know how people can support this company?

I sort of doubt "Carnifex" can be trademarked in any way, shape or form; it refers to at least one geographical location (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnifex_Ferry_Battlefield_State_Park) and a number of species (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triturus_carnifex)...

agnosto wrote:
Yeah, I'm pretty sure Dune was written before GW came along with their Marine "Chapters" and I've never heard "Chapterhouse" mentioned in relation to any GW produced fluff or material (but I admit I haven't ready all that much they produce).

Not to mention the fact that there are Chapterhouses on a number of medieval cathedrals...or considering the english alt rock band (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapterhouse) that actually was formed the same year as Rogue Trader was published

GW should protect their IP, trademarks and copyrights, but this is rather ham-fisted and probably damages their long-term ability to do so. It reminds me of the old TSR books where they had slapped TMs and C's on everything from Nazi to Longsword

I think that it is those terms listed in relation to wargaming/modelling/hobbying and GWs games/universes rather than a claim to general usage and language.

I'm surprised that people are surprised at the way law is done. It wouldn't be expensive if they didn't prevaricate everything.

Well known brand in the gaming world? That's a fair point, the brand is immediately recognisable in the gaming world, however two things to point out. The gaming world is way bigger than the fan base of GW and those gamers generally have a far better understanding of what are GW products and what are 3rd party models. Second point, and it's connected to the first point, I would say that 80% of the GW fanbase isn't even aware of other systems or model making companies, so therefore unlikely to confuse Chapterhouse products with GW products.

Anybody who knows about Chapterhouse knows they aren't GW or an arm of GW, so therefore saying that the quality of their products is also affecting the image of GW products is just incredible.

notprop wrote:I'm surprised that people are surprised at the way law is done. It wouldn't be expensive if they didn't prevaricate everything.

Like ... accusing someone who has nothing to do with Chapterhouse to have made a sculpt for them, then after a year making an out of court feal with him letting him go, then again accusing him to have made a sculpt for Chapterhouse? Can't GW be sued for that?

To be fair W&S are the lawyers of Chapterhouse having a fun time, Foley & Lardner LLP are the guys who say that everyone thinks of Sanguinus when reading about angels in the bible.

GW doesn't own skulls and gems and 'banded armour' on wargames figures.

They are seriously over-reaching themselves demanding exclusive ownership of very generic things.

GW seem to been taken in by their own propaganda. They always behave as though they are the only miniatures company in the the world, here they make legal claims that would seem they actually believe it.

They say that the word "chapterhouse" is unacceptable, but it's only obliquely like their stuff. They only have 'chapters', if anything 'chapterhouse' appears elsewhere in literature. Basically GW seem to want to prevent anyone making stuff that partially looks or sounds to have any similarity to their own. That's just not going to wash, GW created their style of Space Marines and Eldar, but they didn't create skulls on armour or gems on swords, or animal furs. You can't hold rights to depicting animal furs.

If GW win this, they could target pretty much any wargames company out there. The claims are ludicrously generic. So hopefully, they'll just look stupid and it'll cost them a lot of money. If they win this, it will grant them a level of power highly detrimental to the rest of the industry, few companies will be safe.

Oh, and they still talk about owning the "inverted V" which in normal language we call a "chevron". Why don't they call a spade a spade? Probably because they know how stupid it is to claim any control over chevrons having been used by everyone from the Spartans to the US army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kroothawk wrote:

notprop wrote:I'm surprised that people are surprised at the way law is done. It wouldn't be expensive if they didn't prevaricate everything.

Like ... accusing someone who has nothing to do with Chapterhouse to have made a sculpt for them, then after a year making an out of court feal with him letting him go, then again accusing him to have made a sculpt for Chapterhouse? Can't GW be sued for that?

Did Paulson sculpt it or not? If not, was this agreed in the settlement? We don't know, because he's gagged.

No.. Paulson didn't sculpt the walker, a chap over in Australia did, and it was talked about on the Advanced Tau Tactica website for a WHILE when it was a WIP..


http://advancedtautactica.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=8367

(look at the last page where he talks about Chapterhouse getting it to produce)