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[Amy Pond]

It's not a big deal (as in I wouldn't be looking to sue or anything) but my game's name has been used by another company..

In 2007 I started a game called Vengeance, an MMORPG. Vengeance was a small core game and then storyline was explored in campaigns, expansion pack type dealies. The first one was called Vengeance: Inquisition and was released in 2008 partially, but the game was only ever online for a couple of months before I took it down again.

And well, I just saw this today:



The original logo, which I've now lost but must be on my old PC somewhere, looks exactly like this, but replace Dragonage III with "Vengeance", and take down the graphic quality a whole load.

Now my current game, Afar (www.afar.ws) is released and out there, but is actually just a reboot of Vengeance, and I'd always planned on remaking the Inquisition campaign.

What should I do?-

1. Rename the Inquisition campaign and say no more about it
2. Stick with my gut and keep the Inquisition name with risk of being sent C&Ds
3. Party

In theory the word Inquisition is such a common word that I can see how they'd just arrive at the same name as me, but does this make it a problem?

What's worse, the Inquisition name has been trademarked according to their logo.

[Christian Knudsen]

I believe it has to be (R) to signify a registered trademark. TM just says that they're using it as their trademark, but haven't registered it. The USPTO site also confirms they haven't registered it in the US.

I think there's a bit more leeway when it's a single common word used as a subtitle. I'd for example be a bit more wary if you'd made a game called simply Dishonored. But for both your game and the Dragon Age game, they're merely subtitles, so the full name is Dragon Age III: Inquisition and Vengeance: Inquisition. I'm sure there are previous examples of different games using the same subtitle, just can't think of any off the top of my head.

Also, I don't think the issue is of you suing them, but rather them suing you. Trademark right isn't really a matter of who used it first, it's about whose brand is more widely known and therefor at risk of being abused. Is it more likely that people will think of Dragon Age when seeing your game's subtitle, or think of your game when seeing the Dragon Age subtitle? I'd wager on the former.

[Gorgoo]

Also, I don't think the issue is of you suing them, but rather them suing you. Trademark right isn't really a matter of who used it first, it's about whose brand is more widely known and therefor at risk of being abused. Is it more likely that people will think of Dragon Age when seeing your game's subtitle, or think of your game when seeing the Dragon Age subtitle? I'd wager on the former.

I am not a lawyer, etc., but from what I understand about trademark law, this part is false. An important purpose of trademark law is to protect against customer confusion. One could potentially argue that, if someone, upon hearing praise of your game, could think "Inquisition is that good? I guess I'll go get the new Dragon Age game", that's customer confusion.

For an actual example, there are two tabletop RPGs, both called Legend. I did buy a copy of one of them after reading a review of the other, and was surprised not to find any of the features I read about (In that case, though, the similarity was apparently a mistake, and the creator of the RPG that came out first explicitly stated that they didn't mind).

Personally, I think changing your name would be the safest option. It doesn't sound like you had a large fan following under that name, so changing it shouldn't hurt too much.

[Muz]

Yeah, just change it, it's kinda lame anyway. IMO, a good name should easily pop up on Google amid the others. Too many games are named Inquisition.

Or call it something like Dread Inquisition.

[Christian Knudsen]

Also, I don't think the issue is of you suing them, but rather them suing you. Trademark right isn't really a matter of who used it first, it's about whose brand is more widely known and therefor at risk of being abused. Is it more likely that people will think of Dragon Age when seeing your game's subtitle, or think of your game when seeing the Dragon Age subtitle? I'd wager on the former.

I am not a lawyer, etc., but from what I understand about trademark law, this part is false. An important purpose of trademark law is to protect against customer confusion. One could potentially argue that, if someone, upon hearing praise of your game, could think "Inquisition is that good? I guess I'll go get the new Dragon Age game", that's customer confusion.

How is that any different from what I wrote?

[PompiPompi]

What makes you think that the developers of Dragon Age 3 "stole" your name and logo?
I don't know where is your logo, but I doubt they need to steal your design as they probably have very talented artists.
Maybe your logo is more of the cliche\overused side, maybe it's inspired by Dragon Age's 2 logo.
I doubt anyone from the Dragon Age team even know your game exists.
As for the "name stealing", your name is not so original and it use common words in english. And I am sure Inquisition has been used before in some game.

Also seeing your game I think you took assets from RPGMaker? Not that original either.

[Amy Pond]

What makes you think that the developers of Dragon Age 3 "stole" your name and logo? I don't know where is your logo, but I doubt they need to steal your design as they probably have very talented artists.
Maybe your logo is more of the cliche\overused side, maybe it's inspired by Dragon Age's 2 logo.
I doubt anyone from the Dragon Age team even know your game exists.
As for the "name stealing", your name is not so original and it use common words in english. And I am sure Inquisition has been used before in some game.

I don't, but they've come to have the same name and the same logo and it's kinda freaked me. I don't doubt they've come across it on their own, but that's the point, what happens in that case, when a common word is used for two products?

Also seeing your game I think you took assets from RPGMaker? Not that original either.

No, I took assets from First Seed Material, and have kept to their license agreement.


But thanks guys, I'm just going to change the name to something else.

I should be able to refer to it in wikis and things under it's old name though, right? When talking about the history of my game etc.

[PompiPompi]

Good luck

[sigfarter]

do what all white guys do and bitch and complain about it on fox news

[zalzane]

What makes you think that the developers of Dragon Age 3 "stole" your name and logo

I'm pretty sure he said that the layout and typeface of their logo and his were similar, along with the name.

It would also be well within bioware's generally low quality expectations for them to  blatantly copy someone else's logo for their new game.

[Amy Pond]

I can't really complain much, I can't even find the game on my hard drive.

The logo was basically just Inquisition with a larger I and N, and then Vengeance on top in red text, not really similar other than that, but similar enough that if someone saw the two they'd question who copied who.

But there are probably thousands of logos that look exactly the same, and Inquisition isn't exactly an unpopular name for a game.

For what I want to use it for I don't need the logo any more to be honest. I was just going to incorporate the game's story into my game and call the story arc "Inquisition". But I don't need to do that.

Ah well.

[mikejkelley]

From what I understand of many several seconds worth of research, if they're using "Inquisition" to refer to an actual inquisition (ie they're not re-appropriating the word and giving it an entirely new and unique meaning), they can't register it as a TM. In a similar vein, if you're using inquisition to refer to an actual inquisition, you should be safe.

In any event, I don't think you'll have any problem using the name. But, IANAA.