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Remember Tim Langdell? The CEO of Edge Games, who recently stepped down from the IGDA board citing negative press, has continued to create a stir amongst game makers over his ownership of the Edge trademark, which forced Mobigames' lauded Edge game for the iPhone off the iTunes marketplace. Langdell has owned the trademark for years, but might not much longer.
Prompted by threats related to Mirror's Edge, Electronic Arts has filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to "petition for cancellation" of Edge Games' ownership over the trademark.
"Since September 2008, Registrant has continuously threatened to file suit against EA for distributing the MIRROR'S EDGE game on the basis of his purported 'family of registered EDGE marks,'" states the 26-page complaint filed on September 10. "Petitioners reasonably believe that Registrant will contest their right to use the MIRROR'S EDGE mark."
The legal threats leveled against EA clearly had no effect on EA's ability to release and distribute Mirror's Edge, as evidenced by its appearance on store shelves in 2008. But the troubles Edge on iPhone encountered seem to have pushed EA to finally take action against Edge Games, though EA would not explicitly say so when I talked to the publisher.
"EA has filed a complaint to put an end to legal threats over a trademark issue related to our game, Mirror’s Edge," explained EA VP of corporate communications Jeff Brown to me over e-mail. "While this seems like a small issue for EA, we think that filing the complaint is the right thing to do for the developer community."
"A lot of small developers who are faced with this situation settle claims because they don’t know how, or can’t afford to fight for their rights," continued Brown. "We hope that as a result of this action, other developers will be less intimidated by unwarranted legal threats."
As one would expect, Edge Games does not agree with EA's claims.
"EA/DICE have no foundation for such an action, and have no possible chance of prevailing," said Langdell in a brief statement released to me over e-mail. "They have filed these actions merely to put off the day they have to deal with the fact the USPTO has rejected their application for MIRROR'S EDGE, citing our long established EDGE registrations against them."
Stay tuned, as I'll continue to monitor where the legal battle goes from here.
Comments
Displaying 1–11 of 11
Adam_Phoenix
These guys have done some extensive research on the matter. Check it out: http://chaosedge.wordpress.com /
TylerOdd
EA Games is the good guy here. Just look at EDGE's site. www.edgegames.com. You can clearly see they are lying through their teeth. I mean to seriously have 3 games announced on your site, but have no dedicated space for any of them. And does EDGE really have the right to say that edge( a word) is theirs and can only be used in titles made by them. That would be like Blizzard suing a company for having a game titled, Through The Haunting Blizzard.
ashkpa
Hate to side with EA, but I've hated those idiots (for lack of a better word that the censor won't block) who own the word "EDGE" ever since you posted the first story on them. And thank you EA for actually (seemingly) fighting for the lil' guy. And USPTO is probably *shamwowing* in their pants right now :)
lookatthisguy
That's a hell of a concept, getting a patent on a *word*... If it works for them, maybe I'll try to patent some prepositions.
As I do some research, they do seem to be out of touch with reality. Looking at their "store," in which all games listed are "not yet released" or are old PC titles that are probably incompatible with today's systems, you can tell something is hinky. My favorite part was the option to pre-order iPhone games... wonder how that fits in with Apple's App Store business model?
I hope EA can take it to these guys. Based on what I've seen, they need to be put in check.
banodyne
If this was a high school movie, this would be character growth moment when one bully saw another bully picking on a nerd and steps in to stop it. *sniff* Somebody cue the John Hughes soundtrack.
sefphar
Edge claims to be working on 4 games right now, but they haven't released a game since 94 according to Wikipedia. They just make money off of lawsuits and settlements over the use of the word Edge.
gravy666
Do we have to keep typing MIRROR'S EDGE in all caps for now on?
alvarado52
Im not sure the first two comments really know what theyre talking about. 1) If you do some research on the company EDGE Games, youll see not only do they just sit on their name 'Edge' and make cash off settlements for people who want to use the word in a game title, they put stuff on their website to make it SEEM like theyre releasing a similarly named release, when honestly...ive never seen a game from them.
2) EA isnt the big bad company everyone makes 'em out to be. I can at LEAST say EA takes chances on new IPs, where some other companys, like Activision, just flood the market with sequel after sequel of the same old stuff.
That being said, do some research before you start with the 'EA's trying to crush the little guys!' stuff. Like Pat said, theyre helping out small developers with this.
pklepek
Did either of you guys read the story? EA is potentially helping out small developers with this.
pantycricket
Just another example of EA being scared of any kind of compitetion. If they end up buying everything out, I will stop playing games. Ive boycoted anything with EA on the game case period.
SwitzaHouse
EA just wants to buy everything they can get their hands on, no more mom and pop game developers, which sucks since smaller companies have game with more heart in them rather then games cranked out once every six months by big named groups. The little guys often has something up their sleeve that people might like but the big guy shuts them down. I mean Bungie when they made Halo was a small company, and once they became part of the giant that is Microsoft they, IMO, moved away from their roots and they suffered a bit in terms of how some viewed their games. I'm starting to get off topic, if I was ever on topic to begin with, sorry. I just think that the comment on small developers holds some weight.
I think the little developers have ideas that more people want being that they are only concerned with pleasing fans then worrying about their huge company and if this game is good for its image, IMO of course.
Displaying 1–11 of 11
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