Markus Persson, aka Notch, has announced that Bethesda has settled with Mojang regarding the legal dispute over the Scrolls trademark, via Twitter.
AND!! We’ve settled with Bethesda! Yaaaay! <3
— Markus Persson (@notch) March 10, 2012
The dispute first came about when Bethesda claimed that Mojang’s use of the title ‘Scrolls’ for their upcoming game infringed the copyright of ‘The Elder Scrolls.’ Mojang refused to change the title and so Bethesda took the Minecraft developer to court. Mojang were granted an interim injunction in October which allowed the company to use the Scrolls title. However Bethesda did still have the option to appeal the decision, something it appears they weren’t willing to do. In a followup tweet, Notch gave details of the settlement terms.
The settlement is that we give them the trademark, get to keep the name, and won’t make an elder scrolls competitor using the name.
— Markus Persson (@notch) March 10, 2012
It’s good to see this lawsuit get settled but it is a lesson in just how companies will act to protect their trademarks. In this case though it feels like Bethesda were just a little too protective.
Source: Twitter
Taylor Made
it was a silly dispute in the first place, I mean did the mojang game have any similar gameplay or them as elders scroll in the first place
hazelam
no, from what i understand Notch’s game was some kind of trading card game thing, like the magic games.
gazzagb
I still want to see them have a Quake match!
Paranoimia
No-one was ever going to confuse the two products. After all, the stuff Notch makes actually works…
Burgess_101
I dont know about that even at 1.0 its slightly broken :P
Burgess_101
Minecraft that is.
Paranoimia
To be honest, I was just trolling. Never played Minecraft, but haven’t heard anywhere near as many moans about it as Bethesda’s constant recurring bugfests. :-)
Burgess_101
Oh yeah I see the ellipsis now! I used to play Minecraft a lot with my brother but in Minecrafts case I feel bugs kind of add to the quirkiness of the game if that makes sense?
hazelam
so, everything’s pretty much the way it was before then? o_O
Porcupine_I
i think it was not so much was Mojang was doing, but rather that Bethesda suddenly realized what someone could possibly do with the word “Scrolls” if they didn’t trademark it.
ico
A joke. Bethesda being ridiculous. This is up there with posh spice Vs peterborough ‘posh’ fc. What next? Bethesda Vs the dead sea scrolls? As alan partridge would say ‘thats just saaaaaad’.
hazelam
on that bombshell. ^_^
matthangzhou
Needless to say they had the last laugh.
Severn2j
And the lawyers lived happily ever after…
cc_star
Weren’t willing to appeal, because of they lost the appeal their claim over the trademark will mean nothing, this way they keep the illusion of control over the name
Such is the way of big business :(
hazelam
does anybody actually refer to Bethesda’s games as the elder scrolls anyway?
to me they’ve always been oblivion or skyrim or morrowind.
i don’t think i’ve ever used the elder scrolls to refer to any of those games.
Mr-Flame-Head
some people do, a friend of mine asked me if he needed to play the elder scrolls 1 – 3 before oblivion (this particular conversation happened before skyrim was announced)