next »

[Fuzz]

In early 1993, Langdell sued "The Edge" from the band U2 for infringement on his trademark. Langdell claimed that his use of "Edge" as a proper title superseded that of Mr. Evan's use as his stage name. The Edge chose not to settle, and Langdell's claims were dismissed.

He actually did that?

[Bood_war]

What a dickhead...

[raiten]

From MobyGames:

EDGE Games was founded in 1979 by Tim Langdell and was originally formed as Softek Software. Its main brandnames are EDGE and THE EDGE but it has published more than 180 games since 1979 under various brand names (Softek, Masters of the Game, Microselection, ACE, Softechnics). Originally based in London, England (Covent Garden), EDGE is the longest established and continuously operational British game company. While still maintaining offices in London, its headquarters are now in Los Angeles, California where Tim Langdell is still CEO and Chairman.

EDGE is most well known for such hit original games as Fairlight, Bobby Bearing and Brian Bloodaxe as well as its license games based on Marvel Comics characters and such licenses as Snoopy and Garfield. EDGE Magazine was published under license from EDGE by Future Publishing and remains one of the most popular game magazines today.

Let's not forget that it's obviosuly Tim Langdell himself who wrote that description on Mobygames (everything on that site is user submitted, just like Wikipedia). The person who wrote this particular overview calls himself "Jack Phillips" and his only activities on MobyGames so far have been to write that overview and upload that "The Edge" logo that was ripped off from Edge Magazine.

[Movius]

mopius: Don't get on my bad side mate.

[Alex May]

He'll break your legs.

[Eclipse]

uhm
so he's basically only menacing but he already know that he will lost against anyone can afford a lawyer?

[Eclipse]

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?action=profile;u=4823;sa=showPosts

So we're pleased to have Mr Tim "Joe Mangas" Langdell on the thread.

Hi Tim, you're a fucking parasite you know? how about doing something serious in the game biz instead of living of this crap? Fucker...

[Stegersaurus]

For the record, I don't think mopius is Tim Langdell. I think mopius is someone named Joe (possibly Joe Mangas) from the University of California in Berkley. At least according to what I can scrape away from email and IP addresses from my blog. Now, with that said, he is also in California, so I wouldn't be all that surprised if he's met Tim as well, which would help explain why someone would act more defensive of someone in this instance. I mean, we all know at least one stupid person in our lives, but if someone started insulting them on the net we probably wouldn't join in.

[Bood_war]

Dude must Google search the word "edge" like 50 million times a day.

mopius, you live a rather sad existence don't you?

[Eclipse]

For the record, I don't think mopius is Tim Langdell. I think mopius is someone named Joe (possibly Joe Mangas) from the University of California in Berkley. At least according to what I can scrape away from email and IP addresses from my blog. Now, with that said, he is also in California, so I wouldn't be all that surprised if he's met Tim as well, which would help explain why someone would act more defensive of someone in this instance. I mean, we all know at least one stupid person in our lives, but if someone started insulting them on the net we probably wouldn't join in.

yeah and he just decided to defend Tim both here and on fingergaming?
Also read raiten stuff, i think he nailed the right guy

[Stegersaurus]

yeah and he just decided to defend Tim both here and on fingergaming?
Also read raiten stuff, i think he nailed the right guy

Perhaps... I just think that if someone is going to run around the net defending himself, he'd use more than one pseudonym. I think Joe is just someone who has decided to make it his personal mission to help defend this guy, because he thinks Tim is in the right. I have no idea why he bothered to go to MY little corner of the internet to post a response either. I wouldn't be SURPRISED if he ended up being Tim, but I also don't really see enough evidence of him being Tim, beyond the fact that identity fakery has been seen in the past with the whole wikipedia bias. I'll still have to look a bit more closely at what's up on Mobygames though.

[Lurk]

 When someone who has a long established career he can sit on, he should'nt go after the creative little guys trying to make something of their lives. What a disgraceful loser, in fact.
Someone here called for an alternative to IGDA, and I think it's a great idea. I joined it more than a decade ago, went to 2 meetings, got seriously bored and decided not to attend anymore. I don't know if it changed over the years, but I was under the impression that it was mostly about giving project leaders a chance to express just how great and utterly indispensable their vision was to the whole game production scheme, without acknowledging the massive amount of work done and redone by grunts living in their pompous shadows. And let's face it, for anyone who's worked in the industry, the public face is such a filthy lie. No one dare mention how the current corporate model is just killing innovation and driving away the talent, while rewarding the worse impostors this side of the galaxy.
Sorry about the rant, but this really makes me angry.

[raiten]

Perhaps... I just think that if someone is going to run around the net defending himself, he'd use more than one pseudonym.

OK, I seriously did not expect anybody would try and suggest Mopius isn't Tim Landgdell, but now you did, so here we go

What do we know about Mopius?

1) He has signed up here to defend Tim Langdell, he made a inflamatory comment defending Tim Langdell at fingergaming.com, and he also searched the pits of the internet to post at stegrosaurus' blog, to do what? defend Tim Langdell

2) He obviously knows more about Langdell than what is revealed of the man through a simple google search. Look at the following claims:

a) "he took action four times in 30 years (and won every time ...)"

b) "And you guys don't find it at all ironic that he is one of the few indie game developers left from the 1980s? That he didnt sell out when everyone else did? That he funded over 180 indie developers to enable them to make their first games? More people have got their start in this industry thanks to him and you are attacking him? You guys are douchbags for sure."

And what moron was saying Edge Games took their logo from Edge magazine? Edge Games was around more than a decade before the magazine was launched and the mag took Edge's logo when they jointly launched it.

3) He claims he doesn't know Tim Langdell, he just had a look at mobygames.

"I couldnt find 180 games by EDGE all the ones I found were by indie developers. I couldnt find any earlier games by any of them and some of them went on to do some pretty amazing games later."

This isn't even true, go through the list of people who might have been associated with The Edge (it's not always clear which port The Edge published), there are no indie developers listed, and I can't find anybody going on to do any great stuff either (one more ZX Spectrum title here, two more titles while working at Psygnosis there)

4) Subsequently we know that Mopis is lying - he didn't find that information on Mobygames, because it's not there. Why would he lie? Why can't he confess that he actually knows Tim Langdell in real life? Maybe because he is Tim Langdell.

[SaintXi]

EeeeeEEeeeEEEeeEEEEeEEEEEdge!!!

[raiten]

EXTRA EXTRA

SOULEDGE trademark registration in the UK opposed by EDGE GAMES

READ ALL ABOUT IT!

(those are two separate links)

This finding effectively decided the matter under Section 5(4)(a) since the dissimilarity of the marks made misrepresentation unlikely; the evidence of reputation was also insufficient, noted the Hearing Officer.

[Alex May]

So why DID they rename it?

[raiten]

Maybe he appealed (and Namco were keen to get the game out in the UK)? Or maybe he was successful elsewhere in Europe, dunno.

EDIT: found this in the pdf

(From Namco's list of evidence)

The use of the trade mark SOULBLADE in the United States, as opposed to
the trade mark SOULEDGE, is explained by the fact that whilst Namco did not and never
have accepted the claims made by the opponents about infringement of their rights it was felt advisable to avoid potential complications and thus the trade mark was changed from
SOULEDGE to SOULBLADE.

Here are some other hilarious quotes from the pdf, from Langdell's list of evidence:

(Langdell) also states that revenues associated with the sale in the United Kingdom of goods bearing
trade marks EDGE or THE EDGE, or other related ‘Edge’ trade marks since 1983 (either
directly by the opponents or by their predecessors in business) Softek (or any licensees) are
estimated to be £25 million.

SURE THEY ARE

Dr Langdell also provides examples of the way in which the
trade marks have been used. He also claims to have used the specific trade mark
“SOULEDGE” in the United Kingdom and in that connection provides details of sales of a
game called Souledge which was launched in 1988 and which, he says, remains in the
companies active catalogue of products for sale. The evidence of use of that game is dated
Spring 1988, December 1990 and there are some invoices, dated January 7 1992 and August
28 1991.

You wanna make a bet whether that game existed or not? Wow, this guy really is a dirty liar.

5. Dr Langdell goes on to state that there have been numerous reports of confusion as between the applicants EDGE marks and SOULEDGE. Dr Langdell states that in the period
1994 to 1997 the turnover in connection with the opponents ‘Edge’ and SOULEDGE trade
marks used on video and computer games was approximately £3.7 million pounds and that in
the years from 1984 to 1994 the annual turnover was never less that £300,000.

Where did Tim get those "reports" from? Who the hell has even heard of "edge games" or "the edge" in the first place, except Tim, his wife and his poor students at National University?!?

Found one more PDF, this one an opposition to the "DIGITAL EDGE" trademark.

[Craig Stern]

Okay, okay, Langdell is a jerk. That's bad enough. But he's a professor--he's being allowed to teach people, and their tuition money is being used to pay his salary. That really doesn't seem right to me. I suspect that certain university administrators believe him to be more qualified than he really is. Let's have a look.

I'm pretty sure Langdell isn't teaching at USC anymore. I searched for his faculty profile over at usc.edu, but it seems to be curiously absent (despite the fact that my old instructors Chris Swain and Tracy Fullerton still have theirs up). He definitely was involved in the game design program at USC as recently as 2005, but I can't seem to find any more recent mentions of him.

It does look like he's still teaching in the "School of Media and Communication Media" over at National University, however. A quick jaunt through their course catalog reveals the following:
--Langdell is their faculty advisor for the B.A. in Video Game Production and Design.
--He is also listed elsewhere on the site as "Lead Faculty" for the program.

This is NU's student newspaper. And this is the page where one submits letters to the editor publicizing the fact that the head of their school's video game B.A. program is going around threatening independent game developers with frivolous law suits.

[raiten]

Found one more PDF, this one an opposition to the "DIGITAL EDGE" trademark.

Quote from this PDF:

Dr Langdell claims that:
“In or about September 1983 when my UK company became formally incorporated I was seeking
a new trade mark to use in connection with our computer game, computer hardware and interactive entertainment products that would create an image of superlative product that would be associated 30 with high quality and state of the art technology. The marks I chose were EDGE, THE EDGE and DIGITAL EDGE. “
Exhibit TL1 is said to show early usage in trade in the UK of the three marks EDGE, THE EDGE and DIGITAL EDGE. The exhibit comprises of a sheet proclaiming “Get the DIGITAL EDGE! Visit us at 35 Booth 2100 for the last word in Joysticks, keyboards and disc drives. Softek Intl. Ltd ”. However the sheet of paper is not dated and bears no mention of what show/ exhibition this relates to.

[...]

Dr Langdell also claims that:
40 “Such was the success of my UK company having commenced using the marks EDGE, DIGITAL
EDGE and THE EDGE that I sought to protect my company’s intellectual property rights by filing to register the core marks EDGE and THE EDGE. [WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO DIGITAL EDGE HUH]

[...]

[more so-called "evidence presented by Langdell:]
There is a piece of paper with the words DIGITAL EDGE CAMPAIGN handwritten underneath the typed title of THE EDGE. [...] There is no explanation given as to what this means and it is not dated.

wow, so the "mirror's edge" thing really is his M.O! Not only is he an asshole, he's a dirty fucking liar.

[SaintXi]

The £25 Million might not be so hard - About 30 years trading for his licensees including a popular mag and a 'movie'. Even if the movie was licensed for free the gross would be added to the total the Trademark made.