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The thing to keep in mind is that GW stated that they had several hundred other claims against other manufacturers....

CHS was supposed to be only the first example.

Other companies - most likely in the US, the laws are friendlier to this kind of nonsense - would have been next.

Most companies willing to risk GW's wrath are in the UK and other European nations.

Places where either GW does not want to risk losing everything or has no leverage.

And the result was an example - but not for what GW thought that it was going to be.

The example instead showed that GW was an over reaching bully, whose lawyers were willing to bend the law in prosecuting a case. (Why yes, Mr. Moskine, it has been remembered.)

GW wanted to put CHS out of business - and likely spent much more money than the entire profits of CHS to do so.

And lost.

Which also shows that they have little fiduciary sense....

If you are willing to spend more than any possible gain in a court case then you really should not have taken the matter to court.

Throwing the fridge does little to help the matter.

We will see what the final verdict is, but if you are a fan of GW... don't get your hopes any higher... odds are that what they actually get will go down.

And meanwhile GW's share of a growing industry continues to stagnate. They would rather waste a few million dollars on a court case than spend a like amount on advertising.

 Alfndrate wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
I learned about numbers to and $25,000 is greater than $0

That's not what I told my student loan officers

And 25,000 is a lot larger than 0, but CHS won the ability to keep producing a majority of it's products, which in the long run can make them more than 25,000

And more, they have now proven that GW does not have sole rights to much of their claimed IP.

Not a win for GW. Who are now shown to own neither jetbikes nor grenade launchers, nor giant bipedal lizards with Mezoamerican clubs....

The Auld Grump

 cincydooley wrote:


True. But he'll never get a dime of my money. Maybe I am in the minority here, but his handling of his entire business and online interactions I find very distasteful.

I was really hoping his KS would fail (and it should, those renders look fuggin terrible) but there's a buyer for everything, as the Ostrich Pillow proves.

And the degree of distaste that you choose to feel and your perception of the quality of CHS' product has no bearing at all on the legality of their business.

I find the vitriol that people throw at GW a little childish personally. And I supported CH in this case, and I backed their KS, and I buy from them.

The point is, if you are adult about things you shouldn't just pick a side and then dogmatically stick it to them whenever you have the opportunity, many of the haters on dakka don't behave in a manner that I would expect from an adult, and if you have been paying attention, I am very much pissed off with GW at the moment.

You can support CH, and think GW are fething stupid for their ridiculous attitude towards C and D letters, without endlessly ripping on Cinceydooley for playing devils advocate.

Personally, I support CH, but I do think they take the piss a little, and no doubt they deserved to lose in the 25% of claims that they did. Why does it have to be either absolute hate or absolute love with so many people on here?

And feth you all for making a hot tempered horrible bastard like me call for tolerance and fence sitting.

 mattyrm wrote:
I find the vitriol that people throw at GW a little childish personally. And I supported CH in this case, and I backed their KS, and I buy from them.

The point is, if you are adult about things you shouldn't just pick a side and then dogmatically stick it to them whenever you have the opportunity, many of the haters on dakka don't behave in a manner that I would expect from an adult, and if you have been paying attention, I am very much pissed off with GW at the moment.

You can support CH, and think GW are fething stupid for their ridiculous attitude towards C and D letters, without endlessly ripping on Cinceydooley for playing devils advocate.

Personally, I support CH, but I do think they take the piss a little, and no doubt they deserved to lose in the 25% of claims that they did. Why does it have to be either absolute hate or absolute love with so many people on here?

And feth you all for making a hot tempered horrible bastard like me call for tolerance and fence sitting.

Well, CH has a very much Romeo-Esque posting history in the online community before this all started which resulted in flamewars with anyone who suggested that what he might have done could get him in trouble. You can only tell potential customers "Shut up, you are stupid, I hate you, buy my product" for so long before they just simply don't want anything to do with you.

The best thing which ever happened to CH was for their lawyers to force them to stop posting as a regular internet personality. I think 2 years of internet silence probably helped their business more than anything.

You can already see in the new KS thread the rapid-fire posting and non-polished personal posting style opposed to a simple, to the poind corporate mouthpiece has begun alienating customers again. Sometimes you just need to let your products speak for themselves and stay above the fray. That is why CH has some 'animosity' against them which most other companies do not.

 Kroothawk wrote:
In the current non-final verdict, CHS was found guilty of using Roman numbers without a GW licence. That's why the judge wants to have a talk with the jury before making this official. So much for "proved to do illegal things".

This is one of the things I find completely ridiculous. If I were to sculpt a range of GW compatible shoulder pads with Roman Numerals on it, I - X for instance, I wouldn't be able to sell them since GW doesn't want me to.

BUT, GW doesn't even sell shoulder pads with sculpted Roman Numerals on them (AFAIK) so it's not like I'd be competing with GW on that front.

BUT, CHS can sell shoulder pads with the symbols for Tactical, Assault and Devastator squads using the same symbols GW uses; symbols that were previously not used in wargaming to designate such squads.

That makes no sense to me, but IANAL.

 prplehippo wrote:
That makes no sense to me, but IANAL.

Neither are the jurors

nkelsch wrote:
The best thing which ever happened to CH was for their lawyers to force them to stop posting as a regular internet personality. I think 2 years of internet silence probably helped their business more than anything.

You can already see in the new KS thread the rapid-fire posting and non-polished personal posting style opposed to a simple, to the poind corporate mouthpiece has begun alienating customers again. Sometimes you just need to let your products speak for themselves and stay above the fray. That is why CH has some 'animosity' against them which most other companies do not.

Agreed here! Being "professional" in communications is something CH doesn't excel at. They had a lot of goodwill due to the lawsuit, hopefully they learn from that and stay "above the fray" and as professional as possible in their communications going forward.

nkelsch wrote:

 mattyrm wrote:
I find the vitriol that people throw at GW a little childish personally. And I supported CH in this case, and I backed their KS, and I buy from them.

The point is, if you are adult about things you shouldn't just pick a side and then dogmatically stick it to them whenever you have the opportunity, many of the haters on dakka don't behave in a manner that I would expect from an adult, and if you have been paying attention, I am very much pissed off with GW at the moment.

You can support CH, and think GW are fething stupid for their ridiculous attitude towards C and D letters, without endlessly ripping on Cinceydooley for playing devils advocate.

Personally, I support CH, but I do think they take the piss a little, and no doubt they deserved to lose in the 25% of claims that they did. Why does it have to be either absolute hate or absolute love with so many people on here?

And feth you all for making a hot tempered horrible bastard like me call for tolerance and fence sitting.

Well, CH has a very much Romeo-Esque posting history in the online community before this all started which resulted in flamewars with anyone who suggested that what he might have done could get him in trouble. You can only tell potential customers "Shut up, you are stupid, I hate you, buy my product" for so long before they just simply don't want anything to do with you.

The best thing which ever happened to CH was for their lawyers to force them to stop posting as a regular internet personality. I think 2 years of internet silence probably helped their business more than anything.

You can already see in the new KS thread the rapid-fire posting and non-polished personal posting style opposed to a simple, to the poind corporate mouthpiece has begun alienating customers again. Sometimes you just need to let your products speak for themselves and stay above the fray. That is why CH has some 'animosity' against them which most other companies do not.

There is a difference between arguing that winning on 3/4 of claims justifies the 1/4 of times that CHS was found to infringe and arguing that GW winning on 1/4 of its claims does not justify the totality of the claims made against CHS.

Does that make sense? Personally, I think it is perfectly fair to say that CHS crossed the line a few times. But that is not the same as arguing that just because CHS won on the majority of claims, everything CHS did was okay. But I have seen people arguing the reverse: that GW winning on 1/4 of its claims justifies having made all of the claims in the case from roman numerals to piles of skulls.

As I have said before, GW's original filing accused virtually every CHS product and its entire website of infringement. That is the issue here. If the case was only ever about the 25% of claims GW prevailed on, people might have a different opinion about the case.

Look at what Judge Gilbert said. He said that if GW's goal was to obliterate CHS, "go away, cease and desist, die" then there could be no settlement. And he qualified that by telling GW's lead counsel, Jonathan Moskin, that it was not likely GW would even succeed on all claims even if that was GW's goal. He told GW that CHS had a profitable business, and he pointed to an example of a contentious case settling out when the principle appologized and acknowledged that the opposing party did have a meaningful, valuable business that was deserving of respect.

We know now that Judge Gilbert was correct! We know now that the premise of GW's case against CHS was fundamentally inconsistent with the law, in the sense that GW filed a suit claiming that the entire business infringed. Folks criticizing GW's conduct are by and large not arguing that everything CHS did was okay, but rather seem to be arguing that it was grossly abusive for GW to have claimed that everything CHS did was wrong.

Why would GW do that? Why would GW go all the way through with that knowing what the law was, knowing the chances of success, having been warned by the trial court, knowing what the costs were, knowing full well what the risks were?

Well, maybe Games Workshop simply thought that it was impossible for Chapterhouse Studios to go all the way. Maybe Games Workshop thought that there was no way a company as small as Chapterhouse Studios could go all the way through to a jury verdict. Maybe Games Workshop believed that all it had to do, right or wrong, was bleed Chapterhouse Studios dry slowly, painfully, and inexorably.

The Roman numeral shoulder pads being ruled as infringing I found very surprising. Based on the questions I was asked in the courtroom, I think the jury was lead to believe that unlike chapter symbols the the combination of number and symbol have an impact on the game by virtue of denoting squad type and represented something more specifically 40k than chapter symbols do. There unfortunately wasn't the opportunity to emphasize to the 40k-unfamiliar jury that other pieces would still be need to build those different unit types.

You were a part of the trial proceedings? O.o

*Nod*

aka_mythos is actually the judge, but that's a secret, so don't tell anyone.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
aka_mythos is actually the judge, but that's a secret, so don't tell anyone.

If that is the case this is a seriously troubling development.

If GW can write off the attorney fees on their taxes I dont really see that they lost anything at all. If you own an IP you are going to have to defend it, that just a fact of life and the law.

There is so much nonsense posted about how GW does this or that wrong, based on total speculation that the basin of the Pacific Ocean could not contain it all.

GW maybe able to write off expenses as a pretax cost of business but given that GW's profit after taxes is only ~$13M... This trial has been a substantial blow to that year to year gain. If I had to guess I'd say GW spent close to half that on this trial.

 WarOne wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
aka_mythos is actually the judge, but that's a secret, so don't tell anyone.

If that is the case this is a seriously troubling development.

If that were the case GW wouldn't have done as well as it had.

I've been fairly open about the fact that for a time I was producing digital models for CHS. I don't anymore, for reasons unrelated to the case and more to do with putting my time toward my own business venture... but I felt compelled to testify because I felt GW's position was overreaching, as I've said many time.

I am biased and I'm speaking only for myself, but I think GW was given a lot of leeway and favorable rulings early on that made things easier for them... and in the absence of those should have failed harder. I feel that those early rulings are grounds for appeal and likely to reverse those final rulings made in GWs favor. Those early rulings skewed the presentation of evidence away from the norm and allowed characterly similar but substantively dissimilar works to be compared in the weighing of evidence and allowed GW to present photos of works instead of physical exemplars of products as sold, where a number of those photos were misleading. That in a case where GW asserted the alleged infringements for both products and images as separate infringements were allowed to attempt to prove both distinct allegations with only the comparison of images is not normal and probably shouldn't have happened.

My hope is that the consequences are that third party businesses in the US that choose to sell bits can do so in a way that is in keeping with how other industries are able to conduct themselves. That businesses are able to crawl out from under the cloud of fear GW's oppressive attitude has instilled. I have worked in industries where companies freely do what CHS was attempting to do within its industry and that shaped my attitude that GW was overreaching.

JWhex wrote:
... I dont really see that they lost anything at all.

You're one of the few then. Do you want weeble to explain it again? He's done a fairly good job so far.

Also, "writing something off" doesn't mean it didn't cost you. In order to write something off, you had to spend it. You just won't be taxed on that income. It's not like they just say "we write that off" and somehow that makes everything even through the magic of accounting.

JWhex wrote:
If GW can write off the attorney fees on their taxes I dont really see that they lost anything at all. If you own an IP you are going to have to defend it, that just a fact of life and the law.

There is so much nonsense posted about how GW does this or that wrong, based on total speculation that the basin of the Pacific Ocean could not contain it all.

You can't write off 100% of fees against tax. The way it works is that the corporation is taxed on its profits. The fees reduce the profit, so less tax is paid. Say the fees are $4,000,000 and corporation tax is 30%. The corporation would pay $1,200,000 less in tax, but it would still have to pay the $4,000,000 fees.

Essentially, GW's final profit is $2,800,000 lower in this scenario than if it had not engaged in litigation. That is clearly a loss. Please note I have made up the figures in order to illustrate the argument simply.

The second point is that by defending "their IP", GW were revealed in court actually not to own chunks of it. That was a another clear loss and a serious mistake.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
[

The second point is that by defending "their IP", GW were revealed in court actually not to own chunks of it. That was a another clear loss and a serious mistake.

1: GW is not the company is used to be. It has grown top-heavy, like many similar size businesses, and focused only on short-term profits, an affliction that similarly plagues other publicly quoted companies. It is full of upper management and a legal department that is keen to justify its existence. Personally, I know that kind of background all too well, so I can understand that there are still creative people at the company, who care about their job, even thought they have less control than they should.

2: The preceding point doesn't mean that GW is inherently bad. It's just part of the deal for a company that size.

3: RIval manufacturers were producing models, based on GW art, using the actual name of GW designs - for instance, The Tervigon.

4: Any company, nice guys or bad guys, faced with (3) would have to take action.

5: CHS refused to back down on (3), from prior reports here, and they lost. There might be other items, as you mentioned, that GW wanted to protect and lost - but CHS won't be able to label its items with GW names from now on, the reason that they and not other parts sellers were the subject of the lawsuit. Maybe Jet Bikes are a big loss, but I would lay bets that GW wouldn't have acted for that name alone, if we hadn't had blatant abuse of other trademarks.

Now, if you particulalry loved the Tervigon model (I didn't) and felt that not being able to use the name is unfair (I didn't) then you can justify the whole David and Goliath scenario. But the fact remains that: the behaviour that caused CHS to be singled out has been terminated, and GW has precedents to prevent other companies engaging in such behaviour.

Actually, apart from the total destruction of the company, GW wanted to prevent them saying things like 'shoulder pad compatible with Warhammer space marines', and they lost on that. CHS can use GW trademarks in that manner.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Actually, apart from the total destruction of the company, GW wanted to prevent them saying things like 'shoulder pad compatible with Warhammer space marines', and they lost on that. CHS can use GW trademarks in that manner.

Well, we're discussing people\s original motives, which have become muddied by the passage of events. I would suggest that, if CHS had only used that form of wording, they wouldn't have faced a lawsuit. We all know, from the Tervigon example mentioned above, that they went well beyond that.

Why should a company not use wording it is legally entitled to use, in order to better promote its products?

 Kilkrazy wrote:

JWhex wrote:
If GW can write off the attorney fees on their taxes I dont really see that they lost anything at all. If you own an IP you are going to have to defend it, that just a fact of life and the law.

There is so much nonsense posted about how GW does this or that wrong, based on total speculation that the basin of the Pacific Ocean could not contain it all.

You can't write off 100% of fees against tax. The way it works is that the corporation is taxed on its profits. The fees reduce the profit, so less tax is paid. Say the fees are $4,000,000 and corporation tax is 30%. The corporation would pay $1,200,000 less in tax, but it would still have to pay the $4,000,000 fees.

Essentially, GW's final profit is $2,800,000 lower in this scenario than if it had not engaged in litigation. That is clearly a loss. Please note I have made up the figures in order to illustrate the argument simply.

The second point is that by defending "their IP", GW were revealed in court actually not to own chunks of it. That was a another clear loss and a serious mistake.

I would have to look it up to see how it works for tax purposes, but under accounting principles, a successful defence of IP is NOT written off, but rather treated as an asset that is amortized over 10 years. GW could spin that they successfull defended their IP, thus their financials will not reflect the loss.

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Actually, apart from the total destruction of the company, GW wanted to prevent them saying things like 'shoulder pad compatible with Warhammer space marines', and they lost on that. CHS can use GW trademarks in that manner.

Well, we're discussing people\s original motives, which have become muddied by the passage of events. I would suggest that, if CHS had only used that form of wording, they wouldn't have faced a lawsuit. We all know, from the Tervigon example mentioned above, that they went well beyond that.

GW never used Tervigon to mark a product for trade, ergo, CHS used a CHS trademark, which has since been infringed by GW.

Edit: Looking at the Judge's summary judgment order, I saw that the Tervigon mark was one of the marks exempted from the finding of prior use in commerce.

Only on the internet is someone who piggy backs off a company's products, and gets away with it due to legal technicalities, is a hero.hell according to the quotes a few pages back, the only way he'd do a deal with gw was if they gave him a load of money. I'm sorry but he sounds like a dick.

 BryllCream wrote:
Only on the internet is someone who piggy backs off a company's products, and gets away with it due to legal technicalities, is a hero.hell according to the quotes a few pages back, the only way he'd do a deal with gw was if they gave him a load of money. I'm sorry but he sounds like a dick.

GW is the one piggy backing off of people's IP. They ended up not owning the rights to a lot of their early ideas and then tried to trick their freelancers into signing them over after the fact. They tried to copyright basic geometric shapes and hid their communication with the copyright office from the judge. Their whole tyranid line is an Aliens rip off and their whole "chaos" line is an Elric ripoff. Not to mention the endless 40k stuff that is directly taken from 2000AD/Judge Dredd. Have you already forgotten about stories with "Space Marine" in the title from the 1930s and yet GW filed a DMCA takedown against a charity project because the author dared to use that term in the title? It goes on and on.

There is a reason the vast majority of their claims against CHS either didn't make it all the way through the trial or were rejected by the jury.

If CHS is a parasite feeding off GW, then GW is an even larger parasite feeding off of decades of fantasy and science fiction imagery and ideas they stole.

 skyth wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

JWhex wrote:
If GW can write off the attorney fees on their taxes I dont really see that they lost anything at all. If you own an IP you are going to have to defend it, that just a fact of life and the law.

There is so much nonsense posted about how GW does this or that wrong, based on total speculation that the basin of the Pacific Ocean could not contain it all.

You can't write off 100% of fees against tax. The way it works is that the corporation is taxed on its profits. The fees reduce the profit, so less tax is paid. Say the fees are $4,000,000 and corporation tax is 30%. The corporation would pay $1,200,000 less in tax, but it would still have to pay the $4,000,000 fees.

Essentially, GW's final profit is $2,800,000 lower in this scenario than if it had not engaged in litigation. That is clearly a loss. Please note I have made up the figures in order to illustrate the argument simply.

The second point is that by defending "their IP", GW were revealed in court actually not to own chunks of it. That was a another clear loss and a serious mistake.

I would have to look it up to see how it works for tax purposes, but under accounting principles, a successful defence of IP is NOT written off, but rather treated as an asset that is amortized over 10 years. GW could spin that they successfull defended their IP, thus their financials will not reflect the loss.

They will then have to explain away losing 75% of their IP claims. If the successful defence is worth $4,000,000, the unsuccessful defence would be a $12,000,000 loss. Also, the $4,000,000 cash has still been spent. The cash account will be down a lot. The balance sheet will be down a significant amount.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 skyth wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

JWhex wrote:
If GW can write off the attorney fees on their taxes I dont really see that they lost anything at all. If you own an IP you are going to have to defend it, that just a fact of life and the law.

There is so much nonsense posted about how GW does this or that wrong, based on total speculation that the basin of the Pacific Ocean could not contain it all.

You can't write off 100% of fees against tax. The way it works is that the corporation is taxed on its profits. The fees reduce the profit, so less tax is paid. Say the fees are $4,000,000 and corporation tax is 30%. The corporation would pay $1,200,000 less in tax, but it would still have to pay the $4,000,000 fees.

Essentially, GW's final profit is $2,800,000 lower in this scenario than if it had not engaged in litigation. That is clearly a loss. Please note I have made up the figures in order to illustrate the argument simply.

The second point is that by defending "their IP", GW were revealed in court actually not to own chunks of it. That was a another clear loss and a serious mistake.

I would have to look it up to see how it works for tax purposes, but under accounting principles, a successful defence of IP is NOT written off, but rather treated as an asset that is amortized over 10 years. GW could spin that they successfull defended their IP, thus their financials will not reflect the loss.

They will then have to explain away losing 75% of their IP claims. If the successful defence is worth $4,000,000, the unsuccessful defence would be a $12,000,000 loss. Also, the $4,000,000 cash has still been spent. The cash account will be down a lot. The balance sheet will be down a significant amount.

Who knows what GW really spent on this lawsuit and how it is being handled on the balance sheet. These are all interesting accounting ideas of which I am painfully ignorant.

 frozenwastes wrote:

If CHS is a parasite feeding off GW, then GW is an even larger parasite feeding off of decades of fantasy and science fiction imagery and ideas they stole.

So little parasites (Trypanosoma brucei) are fine, so long as they're only harming bigger parasites (Socialis beneficia petentes)

Dark humour and moral ambiguity aside, I hope that this prompts GW to reevaluate its approach to aggressive, threatening litigation. I also, likely in vain, hope that this has wider implications for other companies who seek to hamper iCompetition through iAggressive iLitigation.

I love the White Knights calling CHS a 'parasite' or 'leech' or whatever, when GW lost 75% of there claims.

So it's hard to be a 'thief' or 'leech' or 'parasite' of something not owned by someone else.

Just thought I'd point that out.