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infocom-fiction.com, New Game?

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toddmp

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Feb 18, 2010, 7:43:05 PM2/18/10
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http://www.infocom-fiction.com

Stumbled onto this site today. I have been out of the IF world for a
while. Is this THE Infocom? New Game? What is going on here?

John W Kennedy

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Feb 18, 2010, 8:55:45 PM2/18/10
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It's registered to an individual in Germany.

--
John W Kennedy
"I want everybody to be smart. As smart as they can be. A world of
ignorant people is too dangerous to live in."
-- Garson Kanin. "Born Yesterday"

toddmp

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Feb 18, 2010, 9:39:26 PM2/18/10
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yeah I saw that too. Liberal use of the Infocom logo! Anyone know if
there is any connection to the original company?

-todd

toddmp

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Feb 18, 2010, 10:08:01 PM2/18/10
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Jason Scott pointed me here: http://www.trademork.com/infocom/

-todd

Andrew Owen

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Feb 19, 2010, 5:15:47 AM2/19/10
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I presume both applications will be denied as Activision still owns
the trademark.

Stuart Moore

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Feb 19, 2010, 7:01:57 AM2/19/10
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Andrew Owen wrote:
> I presume both applications will be denied as Activision still owns
> the trademark.

They don't, they cancelled the mark back in 2002.

Andrew Owen

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Feb 19, 2010, 7:20:54 AM2/19/10
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Wow. I didn't know that. Well then whoever is trading under the name
has prior use rights. If neither of the parties are then both claims
can be thrown out. Tempted to start trading under it myself and
register it in the UK. :)

Andrew Owen

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Feb 19, 2010, 7:22:36 AM2/19/10
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It appears to be a sequel to Trinity. Interesting, as even if
Activision don't own the trademark, they may still own the copyright.
But maybe they sold that too.

Stuart Moore

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Feb 19, 2010, 7:27:30 AM2/19/10
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They didn't *sell* anything. Copyright is a very different kettle of
fish to trademarks. It's harder to retain trademarks (hence the
abandonment/cancelling issue with the Infocom mark).

Nothing stopping them reusing the Trinity *trademark*, if it's been
abandoned ala Infocom (indeed, the only mark from Infocom Activision
seem to consider being any commercial value is the Zork one), but if it
starts to use characters/ideas/etc. from Trinity then Activision could
get them shut down over *copyright*.

Andrew Owen

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Feb 19, 2010, 10:37:15 AM2/19/10
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On Feb 19, 12:27 pm, Stuart Moore <N...@SPAM.PLEASE> wrote:
> Andrew Owen wrote:
> > On Feb 19, 12:43 am, toddmp <tod...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>http://www.infocom-fiction.com
>
> >> Stumbled onto this site today. I have been out of the IF world for a
> >> while. Is this THE Infocom? New Game? What is going on here?
>
> > It appears to be a sequel to Trinity. Interesting, as even if
> > Activision don't own the trademark, they may still own the copyright.
> > But maybe they sold that too.
>
> They didn't *sell* anything.

I didn't mean to imply that they sold the trademark rights.

> Nothing stopping them reusing the Trinity *trademark*, if it's been
> abandoned

Nothing to stop them if it hasn't. There's no copyright in titles.

> if it starts to use characters/ideas/etc. from Trinity then Activision could
> get them shut down over *copyright*.

It depends. Technically there's no copyright in characters either.
However, I made sure I had permission from Activision for my Infocom
sequel. Now if I could only finish the damn thing. :)

namekuseijin

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Feb 19, 2010, 12:17:52 PM2/19/10
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On Feb 19, 10:22 am, Andrew Owen <cheve...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Feb 19, 12:43 am, toddmp <tod...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >http://www.infocom-fiction.com
>
> > Stumbled onto this site today. I have been out of the IF world for a
> > while. Is this THE Infocom? New Game? What is going on here?
>
> It appears to be a sequel to Trinity.

wow, sounds like the sequels to "Gone with the wind" or Disney classic
movies. Classic whoring, that's the right term.

Andrew Owen

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Feb 20, 2010, 3:52:46 AM2/20/10
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I chose the Infocom title I wanted to do a sequel to very carefully.
Now if I could only finish it. :)

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