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rigeld2 wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
I note that nobody else had remarked on three interesting details:
Per MD's own statement, GZ contacted them on July 31, 2013.
Per MD's own website, the company only acquired all the trademarks on August 12, 2013.
Per MD's statement, they then refused GZ on August 26, 2013.

And now they want a significant slice of the pie to let GZ produce the game.

Prior to acquiring them they had an exclusive license to use them. I don't see any issue here - instead of continuing to pay licensing fees they just bought the IP outright.
Seems normal.

This rubs me the wrong way... MD made an offer to the Trademark holder to basically 'buy it out' knowing that there was potentially a project coming along which could make it super valuable again. So having information from GZ contacting them they said, "Look, Heroquest is a tired treademark, why don't you just sell it to us and be done with it? Probably the best deal you will get."

Now they want part of the half a million...

The other thing that rubs me the wrong way is now this sets a negative precedent. US law now reigns supreme on 100% of kickstarters and Indegogos even if they are international and have nothing to do with the US. So basically other countries don't have the right to exercise kickstarters which are legal within their own country simply because the website is a US company.

The only people who have a legitimate claim would be Hasbro Spain right now. Sure MD can prevent GZ from kickstarting, but their trademark claim has no reach.

I have no problem with Hasbro 'getting theirs'. I hope GZ can work something out with Hasbro Spain. I am also interested to hear how the trademark went from the previous owner to MD. I wonder if he is upset or if there was some trickery there.

nkelsch wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
I note that nobody else had remarked on three interesting details:
Per MD's own statement, GZ contacted them on July 31, 2013.
Per MD's own website, the company only acquired all the trademarks on August 12, 2013.
Per MD's statement, they then refused GZ on August 26, 2013.

And now they want a significant slice of the pie to let GZ produce the game.

Prior to acquiring them they had an exclusive license to use them. I don't see any issue here - instead of continuing to pay licensing fees they just bought the IP outright.
Seems normal.

This rubs me the wrong way... MD made an offer to the Trademark holder to basically 'buy it out' knowing that there was potentially a project coming along which could make it super valuable again. So having information from GZ contacting them they said, "Look, Heroquest is a tired treademark, why don't you just sell it to us and be done with it? Probably the best deal you will get."

Now they want part of the half a million...

The other thing that rubs me the wrong way is now this sets a negative precedent. US law now reigns supreme on 100% of kickstarters and Indegogos even if they are international and have nothing to do with the US. So basically other countries don't have the right to exercise kickstarters which are legal within their own country simply because the website is a US company.

The only people who have a legitimate claim would be Hasbro Spain right now. Sure MD can prevent GZ from kickstarting, but their trademark claim has no reach.

I have no problem with Hasbro 'getting theirs'. I hope GZ can work something out with Hasbro Spain. I am also interested to hear how the trademark went from the previous owner to MD. I wonder if he is upset or if there was some trickery there.

Where does kickstarter operate? I thought I read they were a us company. If so, it's in the us's jurisdiction because kickstarter is performing the crowd funding. Also, the location of the servers can make a difference too. I know the us has jurisdiction over fcpa cases between non us companies if your funds or communication pass through a server located within the us or territory.

nkelsch wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
I note that nobody else had remarked on three interesting details:
Per MD's own statement, GZ contacted them on July 31, 2013.
Per MD's own website, the company only acquired all the trademarks on August 12, 2013.
Per MD's statement, they then refused GZ on August 26, 2013.

And now they want a significant slice of the pie to let GZ produce the game.

Prior to acquiring them they had an exclusive license to use them. I don't see any issue here - instead of continuing to pay licensing fees they just bought the IP outright.
Seems normal.

This rubs me the wrong way... MD made an offer to the Trademark holder to basically 'buy it out' knowing that there was potentially a project coming along which could make it super valuable again. So having information from GZ contacting them they said, "Look, Heroquest is a tired treademark, why don't you just sell it to us and be done with it? Probably the best deal you will get."

Now they want part of the half a million...

The other thing that rubs me the wrong way is now this sets a negative precedent. US law now reigns supreme on 100% of kickstarters and Indegogos even if they are international and have nothing to do with the US. So basically other countries don't have the right to exercise kickstarters which are legal within their own country simply because the website is a US company.

The only people who have a legitimate claim would be Hasbro Spain right now. Sure MD can prevent GZ from kickstarting, but their trademark claim has no reach.

I have no problem with Hasbro 'getting theirs'. I hope GZ can work something out with Hasbro Spain. I am also interested to hear how the trademark went from the previous owner to MD. I wonder if he is upset or if there was some trickery there.

Again, MD already had the rights to HQ, what they aquired was the rights to the golgatha (and ione day I'll learn to spell that) universe.

When you think about it this makes sense, as otherwise why would GZ have contacted MD in the first place? If someone else held the rights they would surely have gone to them first

By the way....if anyone feels like starting court proceedings, Hasbro's trademark could be pretty easily quashed for non-use in the UK at least. You can't just sit on trademarks indefinitely without using them (eg, selling something).

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/revokingnonuse.pdf

"Revocation on grounds of non-use is the legal procedure for removing a registered trade mark from the UK register because the trade mark has not been used in the five years since the trade mark was registered, or for any uninterrupted period of five years and there are no proper reasons for non-use. It is possible to apply to remove the entire registration or just the registration of the mark for some of the goods and/or services. "

And here's the guide for what needs to be done to apply for revocation of a trademark for non-use:
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/tmmanual-chap7-law.pdf

I wonder how many GW trademarks haven't been used in 5 years...

That's why Sony Pictures rebooted the Spiderman movies. They were in the verge of losing their rights of the character.

 Erasoketa wrote:
That's why Sony Pictures rebooted the Spiderman movies. They were in the verge of losing their rights of the character.

I think that had to do with the specific license with Marvel (Disney). Disney has been working to take back all the Marvel IP and make their own movies after the success of the Avengers.

You can still buy new copies of the previous incarnation of Spiderman movies on DVD or Bluray, so the trademark is still in use. Heroquest hasn't been produced for about 20 years. No use has been made of the IP at all.

decker_cky wrote:
By the way....if anyone feels like starting court proceedings, Hasbro's trademark could be pretty easily quashed for non-use in the UK at least. You can't just sit on trademarks indefinitely without using them (eg, selling something).

If Hasbro was going after MD, they'd have to rely on trademark law, because the extent of their claim would be that making a new game called Heroquest would confuse people who know about Hasbro's game Heroquest.

Hasbro does not need a trademark to go after GZ. GZ isn't making a game called Heroquest, they're making a game that is Heroquest. Copyright law is sufficient in that situation.

 AlexHolker wrote:


Hasbro does not need a trademark to go after GZ. GZ isn't making a game called Heroquest, they're making a game that is Heroquest. Copyright law is sufficient in that situation.

Hasbro totally has ultimate control, but it would have to be done via Hasbro Spain. Otherwise the only avenue for non-spain entities are basically roadblocking US/UK entities like KS.

The only issue is if Hasbro Spain magically says 'ok' GZ won't have the capital, customerbase or infrastructure to produce it and I don't think there are Spain-centric crowdfunding which could succeed. (or at all)

The best thing really would be for Hasbro to decide there is value in 25th anniversary release and maybe buy GZ out and run with it, which is hopefully the ultimate outcome.

 AlexHolker wrote:

decker_cky wrote:
By the way....if anyone feels like starting court proceedings, Hasbro's trademark could be pretty easily quashed for non-use in the UK at least. You can't just sit on trademarks indefinitely without using them (eg, selling something).

If Hasbro was going after MD, they'd have to rely on trademark law, because the extent of their claim would be that making a new game called Heroquest would confuse people who know about Hasbro's game Heroquest.

Hasbro does not need a trademark to go after GZ. GZ isn't making a game called Heroquest, they're making a game that is Heroquest. Copyright law is sufficient in that situation.

What's copyrighted? You seem to have a very broad idea of what it's protecting.

nkelsch wrote:


The best thing really would be for Hasbro to decide there is value in 25th anniversary release and maybe buy GZ out and run with it, which is hopefully the ultimate outcome.

Yes right.. hopefully Hasbro will (if they haven't already) be shown to have some business nous, see what a potential gold mine a re-launch of Heroquest is, and get involved in some form. Or, just let GZ get on with it..

Looking forward to an update and reply to Moon Design's letter from GZ at this point, hopefully we will have something early next week..

nkelsch wrote:

 AlexHolker wrote:


Hasbro does not need a trademark to go after GZ. GZ isn't making a game called Heroquest, they're making a game that is Heroquest. Copyright law is sufficient in that situation.

Hasbro totally has ultimate control, but it would have to be done via Hasbro Spain. Otherwise the only avenue for non-spain entities are basically roadblocking US/UK entities like KS.

The only issue is if Hasbro Spain magically says 'ok' GZ won't have the capital, customerbase or infrastructure to produce it and I don't think there are Spain-centric crowdfunding which could succeed. (or at all)

The best thing really would be for Hasbro to decide there is value in 25th anniversary release and maybe buy GZ out and run with it, which is hopefully the ultimate outcome.

Actually - no, Hasbro has let the copyright lapse in Spain. So in Spain they have no control.

Folks have very odd ideas as to how IP laws work - and forget that different nations have very different laws governing Intellectual Property.

In this instance, Moon Design (or Issarries... or whatever name is being used this week...) has a claim of Trademark in the US - which is where Kickstarter is headquartered, but not in Spain, where Gamezone is headquartered.

Stafford is claiming that he is protecting himself from action by Hasbro - but he is no way threatened by Hasbro. Hasbro let the Trademark lapse in the US - they are not interested. GW let the Advanced HeroQuest trademark lapse - they were more interested in a game that was more tightly connected to the Warhammer setting.

What Stafford is really doing is using a fictional threat to justify making a pecuniary demand upon Gamezone.

He is using this as an excuse to extort money.

And I am certain that the fact that the KS brought in more money than Issarries or Moon Design has seen in any three years has something to do with it as well - he needs to shore up the financials of Moon Design, in the hopes that it does not follow Issarries down the drain. (I am fairly certain that Issarries made more money through the license to Mongoose Publishing's editions of RuneQuest than they did through sales of their own game system.)

The Auld Grump


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AlexHolker wrote:

 Absolutionis wrote:

carboncopy wrote:
The fact that GZ used the old commercial of the old game and has titled their kickstarter as a 25th anniversary edition shows that they are directly piggy-backing off of the old games copyright and puts them at a legal risk. The trademark isn't going to protect them there. MD should be as cautious as they have been when entering into that kind of deal without some kind of licensing or written blessing from Hasbro.

For all intents and purposes, GZ is trying to be faithful in their recreation. They're not introducing any unwanted changes and all the original stuff is promised to be there.

That's the problem. All the original stuff is somebody else's work, so the more of that they put in and the less of their own work they put in, the less justifiable their position is.

There is nothing illegal in making a fully compatible product.

That is why you can buy third party mufflers for your car and Kenzer & Co was able to do a fully compatible 4e product without using the GSL.

It would be illegal to copy the words directly - but making a 100% compatible product is well established as a legal precedent.

It is why most PCs aren't made by IBM, for that matter.... So if you are typing on a Windows machine of any variety then you are dismantling your own case.

The Auld Grump

People seem to be putting words in Hasbro's mouth. They have not released a statement and you're just speculating about what you think they'll do.

Regarding Moon Design, they're within their rights, too. Call it something else and use Kickstarter, or keep it as-is and don't use Kickstarter, it's that simple.

But no matter what they do this is a "knock off" type release, with none of the original parties involved, so calling it something else would be even appropriate. Maybe they won't recycle Hasbro's old videos then, to boot.

I have to say, that as much as I'd like to get hold of a copy of this, I was sufficiently cautious to not back it immediately.

Given the events of the last few days, I'm now sufficiently spooked enough to skip the KS (or IGG, etc) entirely and (maybe) pick one up from retail, if it ever happens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeroQuest

Milton Bradley was the runner for the game.

On to the meat- Heroquest is already out there available.

Doing some digging, all there is really need for are figures.

I'm not at liberty to post the link, but if your so inclined- It is there with minimal effort to find for yourself.


This KS is looking like its a done ding doner.

In the absence of any meaningful possible action, all I can say at the moment is 'silly spoilsports', throw my toys out of the pram and cry!!

But no matter what they do this is a "knock off" type release, with none of the original parties involved, so calling it something else would be even appropriate. Maybe they won't recycle Hasbro's old videos then, to boot.

I suppose it depends what you regard as being a knock-off. The guy who designed the games mechanics disappeared off to the US 20 years ago, and the industry hasn't heard anything from him since. How many of the original sculptors, designers etc. still work for MB and GW? In my own, layman's conception of 'rights' they should surely be the only people with ownership of anything. Rather than a company that hasn't used the name for 25 years, and another company that probably sounds like it could have benefitted from GZ making an unrelated (in terms of format) release.

I agree in one sense that GZ should perhaps have gone with 'BravepersonMission' as their title, just to stop all of the ensuing BS that has come along, and could have made the contents of the box and game style exactly the same. But, I can kind of see their point of having the '25 years' as a focus for the release, and that so many people would remember the experience of that game fondly and would want to repeat it. And stopping the release on the basis that the company used to market it is based in the US seems kind of like a triviality to me.

Given the events of the last few days, I'm now sufficiently spooked enough to skip the KS (or IGG, etc) entirely and (maybe) pick one up from retail, if it ever happens.

You realise that it doesn't count if you say that about a KS that isn't actively running?

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

nkelsch wrote:

 AlexHolker wrote:


Hasbro does not need a trademark to go after GZ. GZ isn't making a game called Heroquest, they're making a game that is Heroquest. Copyright law is sufficient in that situation.

Hasbro totally has ultimate control, but it would have to be done via Hasbro Spain. Otherwise the only avenue for non-spain entities are basically roadblocking US/UK entities like KS.

The only issue is if Hasbro Spain magically says 'ok' GZ won't have the capital, customerbase or infrastructure to produce it and I don't think there are Spain-centric crowdfunding which could succeed. (or at all)

The best thing really would be for Hasbro to decide there is value in 25th anniversary release and maybe buy GZ out and run with it, which is hopefully the ultimate outcome.

Actually - no, Hasbro has let the copyright lapse in Spain. So in Spain they have no control.

Folks have very odd ideas as to how IP laws work - and forget that different nations have very different laws governing Intellectual Property.

In this instance, Moon Design (or Issarries... or whatever name is being used this week...) has a claim of Trademark in the US - which is where Kickstarter is headquartered, but not in Spain, where Gamezone is headquartered.

Stafford is claiming that he is protecting himself from action by Hasbro - but he is no way threatened by Hasbro. Hasbro let the Trademark lapse in the US - they are not interested. GW let the Advanced HeroQuest trademark lapse - they were more interested in a game that was more tightly connected to the Warhammer setting.

What Stafford is really doing is using a fictional threat to justify making a pecuniary demand upon Gamezone.

He is using this as an excuse to extort money.

And I am certain that the fact that the KS brought in more money than Issarries or Moon Design has seen in any three years has something to do with it as well - he needs to shore up the financials of Moon Design, in the hopes that it does not follow Issarries down the drain. (I am fairly certain that Issarries made more money through the license to Mongoose Publishing's editions of RuneQuest than they did through sales of their own game system.)

The Auld Grump


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AlexHolker wrote:

 Absolutionis wrote:

carboncopy wrote:
The fact that GZ used the old commercial of the old game and has titled their kickstarter as a 25th anniversary edition shows that they are directly piggy-backing off of the old games copyright and puts them at a legal risk. The trademark isn't going to protect them there. MD should be as cautious as they have been when entering into that kind of deal without some kind of licensing or written blessing from Hasbro.

For all intents and purposes, GZ is trying to be faithful in their recreation. They're not introducing any unwanted changes and all the original stuff is promised to be there.

That's the problem. All the original stuff is somebody else's work, so the more of that they put in and the less of their own work they put in, the less justifiable their position is.

There is nothing illegal in making a fully compatible product.

That is why you can buy third party mufflers for your car and Kenzer & Co was able to do a fully compatible 4e product without using the GSL.

It would be illegal to copy the words directly - but making a 100% compatible product is well established as a legal precedent.

It is why most PCs aren't made by IBM, for that matter.... So if you are typing on a Windows machine of any variety then you are dismantling your own case.

The Auld Grump

Auld Gump – whilst you are correct that it is OK to produce compatible parts there is a line drawn when you copy an entire thing!

What GZ is doing here (to keep the car analogy going) is not producing a compatible muffler, they are producing a fully functioning Ford and calling it the Ford 25th anniversary edition, they even state themselves that this is a rerelease of the MB product, with some updates to it.

Now I agree that, on my limited knowledge of IP law, it looks like GZ have the right to do this in Spain. My legal knowledge is insufficient to tell me the legal implications of getting funding from a company in a country where the production of the product in that country would be a breech of trademark laws but my guess will be the KS will say no as it seems fairly sketchy so why take the risk? But if GZ produced this on their own then I see no problems at all.

That said lets call a spade a spade and to imply that this is just a compatible part to the original game is just wrong

 Pacific wrote:
In the absence of any meaningful possible action, all I can say at the moment is 'silly spoilsports', throw my toys out of the pram and cry!!

But no matter what they do this is a "knock off" type release, with none of the original parties involved, so calling it something else would be even appropriate. Maybe they won't recycle Hasbro's old videos then, to boot.

I suppose it depends what you regard as being a knock-off. The guy who designed the games mechanics disappeared off to the US 20 years ago, and the industry hasn't heard anything from him since. How many of the original sculptors, designers etc. still work for MB and GW? In my own, layman's conception of 'rights' they should surely be the only people with ownership of anything. Rather than a company that hasn't used the name for 25 years, and another company that probably sounds like it could have benefitted from GZ making an unrelated (in terms of format) release.

I agree in one sense that GZ should perhaps have gone with 'BravepersonMission' as their title, just to stop all of the ensuing BS that has come along, and could have made the contents of the box and game style exactly the same. But, I can kind of see their point of having the '25 years' as a focus for the release, and that so many people would remember the experience of that game fondly and would want to repeat it. And stopping the release on the basis that the company used to market it is based in the US seems kind of like a triviality to me.

Given the events of the last few days, I'm now sufficiently spooked enough to skip the KS (or IGG, etc) entirely and (maybe) pick one up from retail, if it ever happens.

You realise that it doesn't count if you say that about a KS that isn't actively running?

The problem is that if this wasn't called Hero Quest then it most likely wouldn't have gathered so much attention on KS...

Hero Quest was a great game 20 years ago and I still fondly play my copy every once and awhile, being one of the first games I ever really played as a kid it's got the nestolgia factor going for it. Unfortunatly as a ruleset it hasn't really aged well and any attempt to truely update the ruleset would make it no longer Heroquest.

Heh! Get this. Its rich. Now we have four entities claiming rights.

Rights is loose, since there are many (trademark, copyright, IP), but now GW apparently claims to "hold all licenses for hero quest". IMNSHO, is likely a load of BS.

"Many thanks for your email. Games Workshop do still hold all the licenses to the Hero Quest game and this is not an official release supported by Games Workshop. We will pass this down to our legal team to investigate further.

Many thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Kind regards,
Scott Edwards."


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I would love to see GWcrushed beneath the jack boot heels of Hasbro legal. One of the few times I would think it merited.

Good luck, GW with that claim. You're gonna need it.

I have no idea how high up the food chain "Scott Edwards" is at GW, and whether or not his claims have any weight at all. If so, things will get even muddier.

Well since GW and MB(now Hasbro) collaborated on the original there had to have been some sort of official licence/arrangement

just because the original has not been on sale doesn't mean that licence is dead or expired, it will depend on exactly what it said

(although with the GZ version loosing the Fmir and references to the warhammer world GW inerests may well have been lost)

 Hellfury wrote:
I would love to see GWcrushed beneath the jack boot heels of Hasbro legal. One of the few times I would think it merited.

Good luck, GW with that claim. You're gonna need it.

Ha! I can just imagine that.

"Hasbro? That loser? No, HeroQuest is all our doing. We own all the rights to-

...He's standing behind me, isn't he?"

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
I have no idea how high up the food chain "Scott Edwards" is at GW, and whether or not his claims have any weight at all. If so, things will get even muddier.

To be fair, that's probably just an automatically generated email that gets sent by a mailbox minder, key word 'rights' - in that GW owns the rights to anything ever conceived.

I bet if I sent an email saying "I'm hoping to release my own product, fire" or "the wheel" I'd receive exactly the same reply.

More interesting. Are both Hasbro and GW unaware that they let the trademark lapse? That Moon Design now owns it? Will one of them attempt to outpay Moon Design in court?

Totally speculation but I'm wondering if Moon Design will get crushed with legal fees (despite owning the HQ tm in the USA) whilst Gamezone restarts their HeroQuest in Spain as more of a boutique game.

You're right, that is complete speculation . I think MD likely are fine given that they're not trying to make a 25th anniversary set of GW / Hasbro's board game and have specifically stated they will not allow their trademark to be used for such in the US without written approval from Hasbro to proceed. Likely to avoid the exact scenario you describe. What devils

I've canceled my pledge and bought some popcorn.

Heroquest 25th Anniversary edition- Legalquest. A fast paced, flux style card game where 4 companies compete for rights to an antique game in the courts of several countries, each with varying victory conditions!

So all the crap that was speculated as possibly happening is actually happening?

What a mess!

 Pacific wrote:

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
I have no idea how high up the food chain "Scott Edwards" is at GW, and whether or not his claims have any weight at all. If so, things will get even muddier.

To be fair, that's probably just an automatically generated email that gets sent by a mailbox minder, key word 'rights' - in that GW owns the rights to anything ever conceived.

I bet if I sent an email saying "I'm hoping to release my own product, fire" or "the wheel" I'd receive exactly the same reply.

My pan fo will be reviled one day.

Gitzbitah wrote:
Heroquest 25th Anniversary edition- Legalquest. A fast paced, flux style card game where 4 companies compete for rights to an antique game in the courts of several countries, each with varying victory conditions!

------------------------------------------------------------
Legalquest (1-4 Players)
------------------------------------------------------------
Four Factions to play!
*GameZone wins if the game gets published by them.
*Moon Design wins if all players are okay with it.
*Hasbro wins if they can get through the entire game without needing to take a turn.
*Games Workshop wins if they control everything by the end of the game.
-----------------------------------------------------------

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Well since GW and MB(now Hasbro) collaborated on the original there had to have been some sort of official licence/arrangement

just because the original has not been on sale doesn't mean that licence is dead or expired, it will depend on exactly what it said

(although with the GZ version loosing the Fmir and references to the warhammer world GW inerests may well have been lost)

That's the thing though. Remove all GW IP and their claims become laughable at best. Unless they do have something more than just their lent IP to the project that allows them to "hold all the licenses to the hero quest game".

That statement is pretty definitively inclusive. There is no 'had' as the qualifier.

I would pay money to see GW forced to eat legal crow since they are so happy go lucky with their fairly all encompassing claims and brass balls it takes in order to think a company could reach as far as they attempt to.

To see them battle a company that would squash them like a grape in court. A company who could describe what GW dedicate to their legal fund as "cute".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Absolutionis wrote:

Gitzbitah wrote:
Heroquest 25th Anniversary edition- Legalquest. A fast paced, flux style card game where 4 companies compete for rights to an antique game in the courts of several countries, each with varying victory conditions!

------------------------------------------------------------
Legalquest (1-4 Players)
------------------------------------------------------------
Four Factions to play!
*GameZone wins if the game gets published by them.
*Moon Design wins if all players are okay with it.
*Hasbro wins if they can get through the entire game without needing to take a turn.
*Games Workshop wins if they control everything by the end of the game.
-----------------------------------------------------------

Exalt!