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I thought we already read that GW admitted having no evidence of Customer Confusion?

On top of that - that's probably enough on that in this thread.

Feel free to start a thread in Dakka Discussions on it.

 BryllCream wrote:
A better allegory would be passing off a counterfit car as a Ford, having it modelled and painted as a Ford but without the actual logo.

It's like those Chinese cars with names like "Hunda" and "Bercedes Menz".


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 Aerethan wrote:

This. GW lost out zero sales on shoulder pads. Unless they think that people will buy a tactical box just for the 11 pads in it, which would be a stretch in logic.

GW does not offer competing products with 99% of the CHS line.

So it's okay for CHS to make money off them? Common sense is not legality. Ethically yes, I don't have a problem with it. But they're still piggybacking on GW's IP.

DId you read the actual testimony where GW admits that they have zero proof of anybody consusing Chapterhouse for GW? Instead every piece of evidence submitted by GW makes it pretty clear that the people knew it was not a GW product.

According to your logic GW should sue Gale Force 9. Somebody at my FLGS was putting together a box of Space Marines once and didn't have any glue. He was clearly working on GW models and some other guy told him that they sell glue by the counter. He picked up a bottle of GF9 glue and used it on his GW models. Clearly GF9 is piggybacking of GW.

They even have terrain for the table that you play GW games on!

See how little sense your argument makes?


Making something that you can use with something else is not piggybacking on GW's IP.

Making something and saying "This is an official GW shoulderpad made by GW" would be piggybacking on GW's IP.

GW has not been able to produce a single shred of evidence that this happened and the testimony by GW Itself makes it clear that the customers that contacted them KNEW it wasn't a GW product and were not confused by it.

Edit: Just saw Alpharius post, didn't realize there was another page after this post. Will delete if you want me to, but won't talk anymore about it otherwise.

 BryllCream wrote:
A better allegory would be passing off a counterfit car as a Ford, having it modelled and painted as a Ford but without the actual logo.

It's like those Chinese cars with names like "Hunda" and "Bercedes Menz".


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 Aerethan wrote:

This. GW lost out zero sales on shoulder pads. Unless they think that people will buy a tactical box just for the 11 pads in it, which would be a stretch in logic.

GW does not offer competing products with 99% of the CHS line.

So it's okay for CHS to make money off them? Common sense is not legality. Ethically yes, I don't have a problem with it. But they're still piggybacking on GW's IP.

And GW piggy backs off of other IP. H.R. Geiger for example. There is no way in hell you can argue that tyranids are not INSANELY based off of the "Alien" aesthetic.

CHS's products look unique compared to anything GW makes.

 BryllCream wrote:
A better allegory would be passing off a counterfit car as a Ford, having it modelled and painted as a Ford but without the actual logo.

It's like those Chinese cars with names like "Hunda" and "Bercedes Menz".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Aerethan wrote:

This. GW lost out zero sales on shoulder pads. Unless they think that people will buy a tactical box just for the 11 pads in it, which would be a stretch in logic.

GW does not offer competing products with 99% of the CHS line.

So it's okay for CHS to make money off them? Common sense is not legality. Ethically yes, I don't have a problem with it. But they're still piggybacking on GW's IP.

And both Wendy's and Burger King should be shut down for offering "Mcdonald's" hamburgers as well - on a bun, no less!

 Aerethan wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
A better allegory would be passing off a counterfit car as a Ford, having it modelled and painted as a Ford but without the actual logo.

It's like those Chinese cars with names like "Hunda" and "Bercedes Menz".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Aerethan wrote:

This. GW lost out zero sales on shoulder pads. Unless they think that people will buy a tactical box just for the 11 pads in it, which would be a stretch in logic.

GW does not offer competing products with 99% of the CHS line.

So it's okay for CHS to make money off them? Common sense is not legality. Ethically yes, I don't have a problem with it. But they're still piggybacking on GW's IP.

And GW piggy backs off of other IP. H.R. Geiger for example. There is no way in hell you can argue that tyranids are not INSANELY based off of the "Alien" aesthetic.

CHS's products look unique compared to anything GW makes.

But Mr Merrel said that GW sculptors never ever need resources outside GW. They even created Tau from scratch, from their minds and stuff...


M.

 BryllCream wrote:
A better allegory would be passing off a counterfit car as a Ford, having it modelled and painted as a Ford but without the actual logo.

It's like those Chinese cars with names like "Hunda" and "Bercedes Menz".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Aerethan wrote:

This. GW lost out zero sales on shoulder pads. Unless they think that people will buy a tactical box just for the 11 pads in it, which would be a stretch in logic.

GW does not offer competing products with 99% of the CHS line.

So it's okay for CHS to make money off them? Common sense is not legality. Ethically yes, I don't have a problem with it. But they're still piggybacking on GW's IP.

Sergeant Bastonne ... a clear reference to the boys that fought in the Siege of Bastogne ... all WW2 vets should go after GW for this.
Guardsman Marbo .... a clear anagram of Rambo, David Morrell should sue the PANTS off of GW for a BLATANT rip-off.
Kor'sarro Khan .... a direct pull of the man born as Temujin .... 1 in 500 Chinese people can prove a direct lineage from Ghengis .... would that make a class action lawsuit viable with that many clients?
These are just a few of the pulls that GW has done and it's just wink wink, nod nod, and all is good. When someone makes a model because GW doesn't or aftermarket parts for models that GW do, then they are stealing money from GW .... nope, not even close.

Do I think that Chapterhouse was 100% right? No. I KNOW that they were not 100% wrong though.

 Alpharius wrote:
I thought we already read that GW admitted having no evidence of Customer Confusion?

On top of that - that's probably enough on that in this thread.

Feel free to start a thread in Dakka Discussions on it.

One of the emails read specifically mentioned that the person didn't know if CHS was licensed or not, that could be an in for GW to argue that there is a problem because people are (or at least -were- before this trial) confusing CHS for a licensed company.

 Aerethan wrote:

Anvildude wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:

 Aerethan wrote:

That is not at all brand confusion. That is Poster B misleading A, furthermore, the CHS site is very obviously not GW.

And is it very obviously not a licensed reseller? A casual browser could assume so.

Lastly, GW has no evidence of this happening. Potential is all theory.

Wouldn't it be enough to explain how it could happen? If I open a burger bar stealing McDonald's imagery, do they have to actually record customers going in saying "Gosh this must be a McDonald's", or could they just show a court the obvious similarities between their restaurant and the newcomer? That is what GW are doing, or trying to do. The alternative is to email everyone who's ever shopped there saying "Hi, did you think you were buying actually GW stuff?", which is clearly unfeasable. So you're demanding evidence that's impossible to produce.

However, if you were to be all 'Hey, you know where I can get some new rims for my Ford? The dealership said they didn't have any' and someone else said "Check out this website- they got some rims that'll work", well, there's no product confusion. Also, there's no lost revenue there- if GW did in fact make and sell those shoulderpad kits, then there might be a leg for them to stand on- as it is, it's a different company selling a different product that happens to fit the first company's stuff.

This. GW lost out zero sales on shoulder pads. Unless they think that people will buy a tactical box just for the 11 pads in it, which would be a stretch in logic.

GW does not offer competing products with 99% of the CHS line.

um, GW sells a crap ton of shoulder pads. They sell tons of metal 10 packs as well as full lines of resin ones. They practically make and sell shoulder pads for almost every one CHS does.

Of all the things to argue, that is not a valid point and one of the examples where GW can show they do sell shoulder pads as a directly competing product.

 Alpharius wrote:
I thought we already read that GW admitted having no evidence of Customer Confusion?

On top of that - that's probably enough on that in this thread.

Feel free to start a thread in Dakka Discussions on it.

Did he stutter? Seriously.

 Ouze wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
I thought we already read that GW admitted having no evidence of Customer Confusion?

On top of that - that's probably enough on that in this thread.

Feel free to start a thread in Dakka Discussions on it.

Did he stutter? Seriously.

Now with more red.

I can definitely see where GW is coming from. They need to protect their IP. Can't blame them really. My prediction is the court will rule in GW's favor regardless of reasons given here as counterpoints. I understand where you all are coming from but at the end of the day I think GW has a better case in the eyes of the law.

 Alfndrate wrote:

Saldiven wrote:
I don't believe that any of the Dakka community was able to attend the trial proceedings. There was some discussion of some people trying to make the time to go, but it doesn't appear to have panned out. As such, we're more than likely stuck not getting any meaningful updates until the week after next, at the earliest.

Originally it was supposed to have gone on during AdeptiCon, but then it got moved probably for smart reasons... THe 40k championships might have had some missing people

I was there.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I can definitely see where GW is coming from. They need to protect their IP. Can't blame them really. My prediction is the court will rule in GW's favor regardless of reasons given here as counterpoints. I understand where you all are coming from but at the end of the day I think GW has a better case in the eyes of the law.

Not on many of their claims, especially many of their trademark claims. They should have kept the focus narrower, and they would have had a better case. As it is, it'll probably be a mixed verdict.

To make a narrower argument GW would have had to make an acknowledgement it wasn't initially prepared to, that there are legal and fair use ways to use their trademark.

GW wants a full kill of CHS... The reality is that even in the most extreme interpretation of law no part of what CHS is so indisputably wrong that a narrow argument could strike a killing blow. In a more realistic interpretation very little if anything CHS did could be interpreted as wrong and even then it wouldn't be enough to kill CHS, just a product or just images from the website.

This case scares a lot of law firms that fear GW's law firms lack of regard for how this will impact case law. For many firms a ruling in GWs favor stands to alter the fundamentals of how their clients do business and open a lot of them upto potential litigation. How out there is GW's position?-Simply put law firms are likely lining up to bring the appeal for CHS pro-bono.

nkelsch wrote:
um, GW sells a crap ton of shoulder pads. They sell tons of metal 10 packs as well as full lines of resin ones. They practically make and sell shoulder pads for almost every one CHS does.

Of all the things to argue, that is not a valid point and one of the examples where GW can show they do sell shoulder pads as a directly competing product.

And yet GW hasn't been able to show side-by-side comparisons of products... In the few instances where GW did, they were products GW only released after CHS. The issue is more involved than that as well... The nature of how the products are sold is supposed to be part of the comparison... This should really limits product confusion to metal shoulder pads that are sold individually... Which is really none. The fact that GW only sells those metal shoulder pads directly, which tends to limit the possibility of confusion.

The Fortress Wall is falling down, and being used to fill in The Fortress Moat....

In any of the transcripts so far has it looked like GW was winning any of their points yet?

This... was not a well planned case for the GW team.

In a bench trial this would already be over, for a jury trial... maybe a bit longer, but I do not see GW winning many of their points.

Maybe one or two, but I can see Chapterhouse being required to change those items rather than discontinue the lines.

The Auld Grump - jetbike? Weren't there something like those in the old Buck Rogers comics?

Badly planned or not, I still reckon GW will do well with a jury, who will most likely be bored out of their skull by the whole thing by now.

In any case, some of the transcripts are pure gold. They should turn this into a TV drama.

I can't see any way GW can win completely, or come out of this without a pretty damaged reputation.

In regards to the Jet Bike, I know Rogure Trader era art was styled heavily after 2000AD and Judge Dredd and I think some of their artists freelanced for GW? I'm not up on my Dredd reading but weren't there jet bikes in those comics series that the GW versions were heavily influenced/based on?

I know I've seen the flying lawmaster in the Stallone movie but can't recall if it's in the actual comics. Either way it's not a unique concept as it's also in Star Wars and flying bikes/motocrycles are in a bunch of older sci fi works that well predate GW.

GW aren't trying to claim sole ownership of the term "Jetbike", they are trying to claim ownership of the term in the context of tabletop gaming.

Their problem is however that like a lot of their claims they have "assumed" ownership in this context but not actually registered that claim anywhere officially.

The problem is a historic one as they haven't had solid IP protection for many years and this has been highlighted since the CHS case.

IMO it is too trivial a thing to be worth trying to trademark.

You can't stop other companies making jetcycles, flikes (flying bikes), gravbikes, gravcycles and so on, compatible with 28mm tabletop games, by registering jetbike as a trademark.

Exactly, jet powered or similar anti-gravity vehicles are a staple of sci-fi, so it'd be perfectly reasonable for any other table top game (like the Judge Dredd one by Mongoose) including jet bikes in some form or another.

It's also a pretty descriptive term; a bike powered by a jet.

I liked this snippet from the Jones cross examination.

"Q. But you understand that just because you use a word first in commerce, that doesn't mean you automatically get a trademark. You understand that, right?

A. No, actually. If I've got -- I don't quite understand what
you're saying. If I sell a product which has a title on it and I'm using that as market trade for several years and establishing prior use, then that's a trademark.

Q. Let me give you an example that will probably help. If you have a product and it's a desk, and you sell your desk, and you say this is a desk, that doesn't mean that you automatically get a trademark on the term desk. You understand that, right?

A. Yes. "

Who's Jones?

From what I've read of it so far GW aren't coming across very... competently here.

Well, it is cherry picked testimony. Could be hours of slam dunk stuff for gw that we haven't seen.

GW could have filed hours of slam dunk testimony in support of their request for judgement, but they didn't...

Very good point, but even if that's the case the stuff we have seen doesn't look good.

It reads as if GW and their legal team don't actually know about trademarks in general or what they are actually claiming.

I wonder how many of the jurors are planning to start a new army? With or without CHS bits. Maybe this is the culmination of the last decade of GW's advertising budget, laser focused on 12 people.

There's no such thing as bad publicity, right?

 d-usa wrote:
GW could have filed hours of slam dunk testimony in support of their request for judgement, but they didn't...

Yup.

Although with a motion for a directed verdict you are trying to show that the other side hasn't met the burden of proof - hasn't entered enough evidence to provide a basis for a jury to make a decision in their favour. Not that you've won the case. So you don't necessarily need hours of testimony.


Even if it would be nice to read

Dont know, in my NON legal opinion, GW dont have a really good case at all, considering Automotive parts have already been ruled on a similar situation in the US. Having said that, American mentality generally speaking to back big business all the way, thus likely the size of GW be more important than anything else and since this is average joes trial that will weight, so I dont know. Dont think they should win, but it is not impossible, certainly hope they dont.

 aka_mythos wrote:
I think there are procedural grounds and those grounds for appeal are pretty simple. CHS' products should have been allowed to be compared physically and directly in the forms they're physically sold to what they were alleged to have infringed as a matter of the normal procedure for this type of dispute. Instead the judge has only allowed a comparison of CHS website photos to GWs provided images. Meanwhile GW is pursuing claims that both products and images were separate and distinct infringements but in the absence of the physical model comparison the juries determination could be ruled only applicable to the website photos. That is to say by GW preventing that comparison they by default failed to meet their burden of proof against the product lines themselves.

At the end of the day GW may win, but that win would be limited to taking down images from a website that has since already removed many of those images in question.

That sounds like it is pretty accurate. Where did you come up with that?


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czakk wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

czakk wrote:
There have been some filings we can look at:

So they received the letter from the copyright office on June 7 and it was dated January 31? This letter's been discussed at length in this thread and has been around since January, are they seriously trying to pass it off as being received on June 7? And they wait until June 9 to send the copyright office general counsel a letter? That's some serious lag time...

Not sure what's going on there... did they get another rejection letter for another set of shoulder pads? Or have we seen this before.

It is a second rejection letter from a different examiner. It was sent, oh, about right after Moskin was sanctioned for withholding the first one...and only just surfaced...Judge Kennelly needs to do his job. If there has not been a referral to the Bar Association over these shenanigans, which include spoliation of evidence allegations in addition to the withheld documents, Judge Kennelly is failing at his job as a federal judge.