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I reckon Chapter House will not be willing to settle quietly

Their owner has been dragged through years of crap by GW on the basis of many dodgy claims. He has won a lot of points. The damages awarded to GW were derisory. He has a very heavy weight legal crew on his side.

Although IANAL, it is obvious to me that GW have dug themselves into a nasty deep hole in this case. Why should their opponent help them out of it?

On the one hand, he may just have had enough, want to brush the whole lot away and get on with the rest of his life.

Or on the other, he may feel vindictive, or else have enough prompting from the legal types pushing him forward as they want the victory cred from it.

One thing I am surprised at is that he wants anything whatsoever to do with GW in terms of making new products for their games, and can only think he is doing so through either a sense of principle, or else it is a primary source of income.

The reason I say this is that I've seen extremely keen and enthusiastic fan sites get hammered out of shape by even the threat of legal action, having to grovel around on their hands and knees, and that was enough to seriously dent my enthusiasm towards me purchasing any of GW's goods. There is no way that I could have gone through Chapterhouse's ordeal, and still want to be part of furthering that company's interests (because, almost hilariously, I think had GW not launched the legal hammer, the 3rd party producer was possibly even beneficial for them, and certainly not parasitic as they claim).

He wants to make those products because they will sell. Is there a bits market for war machine or infinity for him to sell to?

 Laemos wrote:
He wants to make those products because they will sell. Is there a bits market for war machine or infinity for him to sell to?

If there were a set of reasonable pauldrons for the plastics produced by privateer press.... absolutely. I used to be gung-ho for PP's product line, but now I've started buying their resin stuff..... that garbage is bloody atrocious. I have never cursed as much as I did this morning trying to assemble a skorne cyclops, or figure out where the accursed pauldrons fit on the cataphracti, or even how to angle the pauldrons on the tusked monster in the starter box. Absolutely dreadful garbage. The second kit I ever bought from privateer press were the metal steelhead helbardiers, which are notoriously awful to assemble, and I was perfectly happy assembling those.

Moral of the story: I'd willingly pay a company who offered a set of replacement pauldrons for PP's plastic/resin products that actually fit the model and didn't turn them into ridiculous-looking space marines.

 Pacific wrote:
On the one hand, he may just have had enough, want to brush the whole lot away and get on with the rest of his life.

...
...

What I think is if he had had enough he could have accepted the original trial result, paid the $25,000 fine, and got on with his life from that point.

My assumption of course, but the legal team behind him may also want to shape the precedent that this case will become.

I am sure they do but they would be unable to continue without the cooperation of their client.

If they're saying to him, though, as I hope they are, that with a little more work they can make the $25K fine go away AND give him the freedom to make pretty much whatever GW-compatible parts he wants... that's a strong incentive to carry on.

I think there is a good chance they may get some of the madder jury decisions changed, which would give Chapter House and other 3rd party companies more freedom from Games Workshop interference.

I got the impression at the end of the Jury decision that the law was often ignored, or applied in some cases but not in others based upon the juries sense of what was 'fair' as opposed to what was actually legal or not. It would be good to get some of those bad/illogical judgements straightened out before they pervert subsequent cases.

Honestly, Juries are only really effective at dispensing 'Justice' with person-harming-person cases. In questions of things like copyright, or person-against-law, or a ton of other legal disputes, I feel like we should just make use of our massive overpopulation of highly educated Lawyers and tell them to figure it out.

If one of the silly rulings stands through appeal and a later trial attempts to use that ruling for precedent, is a judge/Jury allowed to disagree? If so, does it allow that specific original ruling to be revisited?

I'm guessing the answers are yes to the first answer and no to the second, but I figured I'd ask.

rigeld2 wrote:
If one of the silly rulings stands through appeal and a later trial attempts to use that ruling for precedent, is a judge/Jury allowed to disagree? If so, does it allow that specific original ruling to be revisited?

I'm guessing the answers are yes to the first answer and no to the second, but I figured I'd ask.

It depends. Precedent at the appellate level is only binding on lower courts within that appellate court's jurisdiction (here, the 7th Circuit), and even then only as to matters of law; facts will always differ.

 Janthkin wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:
If one of the silly rulings stands through appeal and a later trial attempts to use that ruling for precedent, is a judge/Jury allowed to disagree? If so, does it allow that specific original ruling to be revisited?

I'm guessing the answers are yes to the first answer and no to the second, but I figured I'd ask.

It depends. Precedent at the appellate level is only binding on lower courts within that appellate court's jurisdiction (here, the 7th Circuit), and even then only as to matters of law; facts will always differ.

otherwise, if laws are not binding, they may be deemed compelling. In the absence of precedent, courts may be compelled to review the decisions made in another country or jurisdiction and use that as the basis of their decision.

 poda_t wrote:

 Janthkin wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:
If one of the silly rulings stands through appeal and a later trial attempts to use that ruling for precedent, is a judge/Jury allowed to disagree? If so, does it allow that specific original ruling to be revisited?

I'm guessing the answers are yes to the first answer and no to the second, but I figured I'd ask.

It depends. Precedent at the appellate level is only binding on lower courts within that appellate court's jurisdiction (here, the 7th Circuit), and even then only as to matters of law; facts will always differ.

otherwise, if laws are not binding, they may be deemed compelling. In the absence of precedent, courts may be compelled to review the decisions made in another country or jurisdiction and use that as the basis of their decision.

And appellate court rulings are generally given a higher degree of deference than lower court rulings. And copyright and trademark rulings out of the 7th Circuit are usually given a bit more deference and consideration than those in other venues.

Today, Tom Kirby mentioned the Chapterhouse case in GW's Annual Report (http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/2013-14-Press-statement-final-website.pdf)


He mentioned that they spent way too much and gained way too little for it.

 odinsgrandson wrote:
He mentioned that they spent way too much and gained way too little for it.

It's almost like he expected to not be the company slowly being drained by this case.

I also love how Mr Kirby at least implicitly suggested that the outcome was the legal system's fault, not his company's fault. It couldn't be that the failure to crush Chapterjouse was due to GW overreaching on what could be asserted under IP law. Nor could it be that GW actually didn't have claim to what they said they owned.

Nope.

It's all the fault of an antiquated legal system that is only good for determining who owns which hog...

Valete,

JohnS

Just goes to show, how much the tabletop gaming industry owes chapter house.

 loki old fart wrote:
Just goes to show, how much the tabletop gaming industry owes chapter house.

The vast majority of the industry doesn't owe them anything.

2014 Report wrote:Operating expenses (excluding exceptional items) fell by £6.2 million; £3.1 million due to a reduction in retail store costs, £1.1 million employee profit share not incurred in the year and £0.3 million reduction in legal costs. Savings of £0.7 million from the continental european reorganisation have been realised. Costs remain a key area of focus.

So, their legal costs have declined by £300k this year; coincidentally, the appeal is essentially on complete hold, and drawing out "settlement" conversations has a much lower cost than actual litigation.

I do find it odd that GW doesn't call out litigation costs specifically in their accounting; if they acknowledge that they spent "an indecent amount," and the decrease of legal costs merits description in their operating costs section, that seems like it would meet the requirement for disclosure for a US publicly-traded company.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:
Just goes to show, how much the tabletop gaming industry owes chapter house.

The vast majority of the industry doesn't owe them anything.

They will do, if Chapter House's legal team can win the appeal case and bring about changes to the law / case precedent that will result in healthier conditions for the industry with regards to IP, Copyrights and Trademarks etc.

Not only that, Kirby's preamble now seems less than enthusiastic about such lawsuits and about whether or not they are necessary. So it could be that CHS will have caused GW to spend enough money on the case to accomplish next to nothing that GW will think twice about being legal bullies. When the biggest player stops being a litigious bully, that's good for the whole industry.

 frozenwastes wrote:
Not only that, Kirby's preamble now seems less than enthusiastic about such lawsuits and about whether or not they are necessary. So it could be that CHS will have caused GW to spend enough money on the case to accomplish next to nothing that GW will think twice about being legal bullies. When the biggest player stops being a litigious bully, that's good for the whole industry.

Exactly

 Janthkin wrote:

2014 Report wrote:Operating expenses (excluding exceptional items) fell by £6.2 million; £3.1 million due to a reduction in retail store costs, £1.1 million employee profit share not incurred in the year and £0.3 million reduction in legal costs. Savings of £0.7 million from the continental european reorganisation have been realised. Costs remain a key area of focus.

So, their legal costs have declined by £300k this year; coincidentally, the appeal is essentially on complete hold, and drawing out "settlement" conversations has a much lower cost than actual litigation.

I do find it odd that GW doesn't call out litigation costs specifically .

Since it was a 'successful' defence of the ip, the costs should have been turned into an intangible asset to be amoritized.

Perhaps because litigation isn't over they're not willing to advertise exactly how big that number is...

Kirby accusing Chapterhouse of theft in his preamble was suggested to be grounds for libel. Would be interesting to see if CHS take that up and nail GW even further into the wall.

I think the CHS case with GW is going to turn out to be a fight they wish they hadn't of picked. GW is in the cage now and they're going to be there until it's over, whether they want to bail out or not. I would speculate that CHS is unlikely to settle unless GW ponies up some money. I also think that CHS lawyers don't want to see a settlement because of the legal precedent that the prior lazy judge allowed. GW is also to pig headed to want to walk away from this case, even if ultimately they know they should.

 Yonan wrote:
Kirby accusing Chapterhouse of theft in his preamble was suggested to be grounds for libel. Would be interesting to see if CHS take that up and nail GW even further into the wall.

Not really. A jury did find that Chapterhouse unfairly appropriated certain Games Workshop copyrighted materials. It isn't much of an untruth to describe that as theft, at least insofar as defamation is concerned. No, Kirby is on firm ground there. But he also called the lawsuit an indecent expense for far too little gain, so good luck declaring that expense as an asset without incurring liability.

Question... The Lawsuit says it fair use to use GW terms for selling releted/add-on products (i.e. Eldar and such). What then is the point of the IG name change, as it is already legal for use too.