First the Discovery Channel makes an Atlas Quest game (http://www.discoverychannel.com.au/atlas/game/ ) and now there's World of Warcraft taking my good name (http://worldofwarcraft.filefront.com/file/AtlasQuest_v31743;71342 ) for their own diabolical purposes. Just terrible.... *shaking head*

I'm not entirely sure what that second thing is supposed to do, but it's been years since I've ever played WoW. I'm so out of touch with fantasy fun. =)

-- Ryan

See, a good trademark lawyer could have saved you some grief. No hope for suing them now, right?

LW PhD
"Nice Counts"

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See, a good trademark lawyer could have saved you some grief. No hope for suing them now, right?

Well, I'm not sure there's anything to be sued about. Unless there's a good chance of someone mistaking a letterboxing website for a World of Warcraft website (not likely, I should think) or a Discovery Channel game (not likely, I should think), there's not much I can do to stop them from using it.

I did notice an unusually high number of searches for "atlasquest" and "atlas quest" coming to the site a few months ago, but it wasn't until today when I discovered that WoW link that I finally figured out why the sudden interest in the term. Oldest source I can find online shows them using it since last October, which is when the unusually high number of hits started coming. Me thinks a lot of people looking for Warcraft stuff ends up on this site by mistake. =) They'll figure out their mistake quick enough, though.

I've been using the name longer than either of those other places, though, so they'd have a hard time getting me to stop using the name--even if I haven't officially registered a trademark on it. (I had looked into that--mostly because I never trademarked a term before and thought it would be interesting and educational experience--but decided not to when I saw how many hundreds of dollars it would cost!)

Even if I did trademark the term, though, it's unlikely I could have stopped them from using it. If another letterboxing website came up calling themselves Atlas Quest (or something similar), I'd have a good case of stopping them. But for something that's totally unrelated to letterboxing--not really.

But it does kind of annoy me to see other people using the name for something totally different. It was MY idea first! (With help from Amanda, of course. *smile*)

At least I get the domain name, though. I wonder if they tried to register it when they made their program just to find me already having taken it.

In fact.... I wonder if that offer I got from someone to buy the domain name from me might have been related to it? Hmm.....

-- Ryan

Apparently, the Wow AQ is an add-on that helps the players find quest items on a certain map for a particular dungeon.

They couldn't turn around and sue you for it, could they, with all them big fancy lawyer types that they have? I hope not.

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If another letterboxing website came up calling themselves Atlas Quest (or something similar), I'd have a good case of stopping them. But for something that's totally unrelated to letterboxing--not really.

Au contraire. Federal Express successfully sued a local coffee shop here who had called themselves Federal Espresso. I doubt anyone thinks FedEx is delivering coffee...or a coffeeshop is shipping packages on the side.

If comes down to how badly you want it ( and are willing to pay) ...and how good your lawyer is.

LW PhD
"Nice Counts"

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Federal Express successfully sued a local coffee shop here who had called themselves Federal Espresso. I doubt anyone thinks FedEx is delivering coffee...or a coffeeshop is shipping packages on the side.

I knew someone was going to point out something like this, but that's more an exception than the rule. Large, well-known companies have a certain level of protection that smaller companies and businesses do not.

I'll quote some stuff from Wikipedia since it's easier to read than the stuff on the official trademark website, but they have the same information.

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A registered trademark confers a bundle of exclusive rights upon the registered owner, including the right to exclusive use of the mark in relation to the products or services for which it is registered. The law in most jurisdictions also allows the owner of a registered trademark to prevent unauthorised use of the mark in relation to products or services which are similar to the "registered" products or services, and in certain cases, prevent use in relation to entirely dissimilar products or services.

The emphasis is mine. Atlas Quest doesn't really fit into those certain cases.

Here's another quote, but this time the emphasis is NOT mine!

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The extent to which a trademark owner may prevent unauthorized use of trademarks which are the same as or similar to its trademark depends on various factors such as whether its trademark is registered, the similarity of the trademarks involved, the similarity of the products and/or services involved, and whether the owner’s trademark is well known.

As much as I'd like to think otherwise, Atlas Quest is just not well known to the general public.

In this case, the trademark is not registered, the similarity of the products is not very great, and the trademark is not well known. The only thing I have against these other uses of Atlas Quest is the "similarity of the trademarks involved." I could register Atlas Quest as an official trademark, but I'd still have the problem with the similarity of the products involved and the fact that Atlas Quest is not a well known trademark.

But I can take some comfort that they won't ever be able to make ME stop using the name Atlas Quest since I was using it long before they were. =) I only had to use the term to make it a trademark—it's just an unregistered trademark. The trademark isn't nearly strong enough to prevent them from using it for unrelated purposes, though.

-- Ryan

Ryan,
As I am married to the King of WoW ...and the IT director of a large high school...he is talking gibrish to me and in the end this is NOT something that Blizzard itself has divised at all it is an add on created by a player on their own that should NOT interfere at all with your server/AQ as a whole, seeing as it is a file add on to the game NOT a web site on it's own. He told me what it was but I am NOT able to translate what he said , if I tried my head might explode and that would be a mess on the keyboard NOONE would want to clean up!!!
If you want to know more ask and I will try harder but I hope that calms everything!

teekasue

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But I can take some comfort that they won't ever be able to make ME stop using the name Atlas Quest since I was using it long before they were.

You can also take comfort from the fact that a website called 'World of Warcraft' is unlikely to want your logo of that cute AQ Chick, Marjorie LOL.

YT

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I'm not entirely sure what that second thing is supposed to do, but it's been years since I've ever played WoW. I'm so out of touch with fantasy fun. =)

Man, don't even get me STARTED on those sim type games! The Highlander and I met on a text based MUD game like that called Terris. We played that religiously for a while, then I got Age of Empires and he bought Everquest. He was at it for like MONTHS! He literally had to give it away because he couldn't stop playing it. Then my friend wanted me to start playing World of Warcraft and I told her that NOTHING, but NOTHING could cut into my Sims 2 time. As soon as I get Amanda & Ryan married off and they get at least one kid into private school and move next door to me and the Highlander and our 6 kids, THEN I'll start looking at the brochures for WoW...uh, while I play Sims 2!

Holy cow, nothing is more addictive than a game where you personally control someone's life! :-) Do you know how messed up I'd be if I could LETTERBOX from the LAPTOP??? The only person who'd be more lost than I would be CQ (who has his laptop IV drip plugged into his arm each night)

The S & H

OHHHHHH other Simmers! I LOVE the game. We built a community where it's REQUIRED to not try to make everything perfec. Sims have to accept the attributes that are given with the zodic symbol... even the slobby ones. I found out that the real slobs can dumpster dive in trash cans! lol lol lol

I used to play games all the time in my younger years. Age of Empires and World of Warcraft--both of them permanently burned images into my retina. =) Used to be a huge fan of Kings Quest, Space Quest, Monkey Island. Even the old text-based Zork games. Ahh, the classics.... =) I still have the original Nintendo with Rob, the robot, around somewhere. Actually, I even have the original Atari system around here somewhere. I bet that thing might be worth some money as an antique now! =) Oh, and Duke Nukem 3D beat the pants off of.... what was the name of that stupid game? Oh, yeah, Doom! =) Actually, my biggest complaint against Doom was that it always ran too slow on my machine.

In fact, I was even going to write games for a living. I decided that in 3rd grade. *nodding*

About the time I started working at Dairy Queen, though, I realized those games are friggin' expensive and I pretty much stopped playing completely. Oh, I still like a good game of Freecell occasionally (free!), but games lost a lot of their appeal for me when I had to start paying for them myself.

But that's just as well since I've developed other interests to keep me occupied since then. I wouldn't have time for all those games anymore.

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Do you know how messed up I'd be if I could LETTERBOX from the LAPTOP???

*cough*virtuals*cough*

-- Ryan

My son is TOTALLY addicted to Runescape. He'd be on there every waking minute if I'd let him. I actually kidnapped him yesterday and made him go letterboxing with me, so he'd see what the world still looked like and breathe some fresh air.

He is a sad, sad case. <g>

DebBee

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*cough*virtuals*cough*

Are you promoting virtuals???
I thought you were a strict traditionalist!

Well, being British I have to mention Laura Croft here.

I haven't got the very latest one yet, but I just managed to finish all the rest off before I found AQ. I might have had to buy the latest one at full price if it wasn't for AQ. Now I am content to bide my time and wait until it reaches the 3 for the price of 1 stands.

YT

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Are you promoting virtuals???
I thought you were a strict traditionalist!

Oh, don't be silly. Just because *I* don't like doing virtuals doesn't mean I try to talk other people out of doing them. If they float your boat, I don't plan to sink it! =)

-- Ryan

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OHHHHHH other Simmers! I LOVE the game. We built a community where it's REQUIRED to not try to make everything perfec. Sims have to accept the attributes that are given with the zodic symbol... even the slobby ones. I found out that the real slobs can dumpster dive in trash cans! lol lol lol

Hey, if you get the Tombstone of Life and Death, you can make even the worst enemies dig each other! Muhahahahaha!

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*cough*virtuals*cough*

Really? Never heard of 'em (hides all 73 Walt Disney World virtual finds from Letterbug under her virtual desktop)