Can We Get A Few Morons In A Hurry Over To Skywalker Ranch?
from the pretty-quickly-please dept
Once again, it appears we've found a situation where our favorite trademark test should be used. As has been stated way too many times, the purpose of a trademark is simply to avoid customer confusion over two similarly named products in the same space. As such, the perfect legal test for some of the more bizarre trademark infringement claims is whether or not a "moron in a hurry" would confuse the two. Well, we'd like to send a few morons in a hurry up to the Skywalker Ranch (or, at least, the Presidio) to see what they think of Lucasfilm's latest complaint that Digg's trademark on "Digg" is too similar to Lucasfilm's trademark on "The Dig," which apparently is some video game from 1994 that few of us have ever heard about, let alone played. The idea that anyone would confuse the two things is somewhat ridiculous. And, before someone points out that to protect a trademark you have to defend it, that doesn't mean defending it in cases where it obviously has no bearing, and it's hard to see why the trademark on a 13-year-old game no one plays any more is worth the lawyer's time defending. Perhaps it's just an attempt to get the game some more attention in a bizarre reverse Streisand Effect.
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Silly Publicity Stunts by TheDock22 on Feb 22nd, 2007 @ 3:51pm
The Dig and Digg's, sheesh. They aren't even spelled the same for crying out loud!
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I played it by CDH on Feb 22nd, 2007 @ 4:22pm
I could care less about the trademark dispute, but I will say that The Dig was definitely a fun game :)
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heart by Anonymous Coward on Feb 22nd, 2007 @ 4:29pm
"which apparently is some video game from 1994 that few of us have ever heart about"
You're right, I certainly don't heart it, I haven't even heard about it!
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Sad Really.. by SpaceColony on Feb 22nd, 2007 @ 4:32pm
The Dig was, and still is, an awesome adventure game - truly worth looking into. Sadly it seems that these days there really is little market for adventure games of the sort.
What I find more interesting is that after neglecting both the genera and their existing titles - in the genera - for so long they now come up with this. And although I have not done any digging recently to see if anything new is in the works I recall that The Dig had a solid ending. I doubt that they are preparing to add to the story now.
Ahh, good memories. I think I will go load up ScummVM and play it again.
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by Nick D on Feb 22nd, 2007 @ 4:33pm
UPDATE!!! This has turned into a class action suit! It is being joined by shovels around the world!
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Re: I played it by Xanius on Feb 22nd, 2007 @ 5:11pm
It's good that you could care less about it. It shows that you care. I however couldn't care less, I'm upset with George for not letting us get our hands on the starwars christmas special.
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WTF are they talking about? by cjmemay on Feb 22nd, 2007 @ 5:12pm
Am I out of my mind or do those 2 logos not even look REMOTELY similar!
WTF?!?
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LOL by MoFinWiley on Feb 22nd, 2007 @ 5:16pm
HAHAHAHA "I can't use these two things togehter"
my friends and I STILL use that line from "The Dig"
Great game
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genre by Adam on Feb 22nd, 2007 @ 5:18pm
genre... it's genre...
funetick speling FTW.
genera reminds me of gonorrhea.
/offtopic
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Hey Lucas by KRamer on Feb 22nd, 2007 @ 6:29pm
F-off
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LOL by Buzz on Feb 22nd, 2007 @ 6:36pm
I remember The Dig. Ironically, Digg's site never once made me think of that game. I hate stupid people.
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by yardape6 on Feb 22nd, 2007 @ 6:46pm
I loved that game. I have played it more times than I care to remember honestly. The game was truly one of the best adventure games in the 90's.
All that aside, WTF Lucas! There is no way that anyone could mistake your 12 year old adventure game for a news aggregation site. I guarantee that this gets thrown out of court.
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by Jacob Buck on Feb 22nd, 2007 @ 6:57pm
wait until the makers of dig dug hear about this.
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by The Swiss Cheese Monster on Feb 22nd, 2007 @ 7:02pm
I think that whoever invented the game Digger should go after both parties.
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by FishBulb on Feb 22nd, 2007 @ 7:24pm
Hey Namco? Wake up? DigDug?
Hello?
The Dig was awesome, as was just about any LucasArts Adventure game.
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Who? by Spaceman on Feb 22nd, 2007 @ 7:37pm
Who the heck is Digg ????
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My exgf was named by Dirk on Feb 22nd, 2007 @ 8:00pm
She earned that name because she like digging her fingers into a my butthole. Man I wish I knew where she is now.
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Dig was one of the best adventure games by Derek on Feb 22nd, 2007 @ 8:27pm
Dig was one of the best adventure games of its time. Outstanding graphics (for that time), and one of the final LucasArts Adventure games in 2D.
The Striesand Effect is working, I actually remembered the game after reading this, dug it up, and booted up the old 486 to play it.
But i could never EVER confuse the two
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by ScytheNoire on Feb 23rd, 2007 @ 2:45am
god damnit, can't we get one day without a stupid lawsuit. just one damn f'in day without another pathetically lame lawsuit. just one day. one f'in day! just one!
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Re: #19 by billy on Feb 23rd, 2007 @ 5:59am
No.
Companies are stupid and greedy, that is all there is to it.
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No time to say hello, goodbye by deirdre on Feb 23rd, 2007 @ 6:50am
I didn't have time to watch the whole movie, let alone leave a long comment about it, but I just watched the opening scene to Digg online and it looks like the most boring movie Lucasfilms has EVER made!
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by Nick Burns on Feb 23rd, 2007 @ 6:59am
a wonderful game... DOS4GW!!!! w0000000000000t!
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In other news... by comboman on Feb 23rd, 2007 @ 7:11am
In other news, Lucasfilm is suing everyone named Sam and Max. The residents of Monkey Island are said to be preparing for a class-action suit.
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I'll go... by Moron on Feb 23rd, 2007 @ 10:49am
A-huh, I'll head on up there to that there Skywalker Ranch for ya!
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Re: Sad Really.. by Syzygy on Feb 23rd, 2007 @ 1:50pm
I loved The Dig as well, definitely one of the best games I played. The game also came with a book that followed a very similar storyline as the game (didn't reveal any solutions to the puzzles, heh). I was probably one of the few people that actually read the novel along with the game...
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Digg-it! by Anon-i-mouse on Feb 23rd, 2007 @ 2:10pm
And then way back (in the 80's anyway) there was the game Dig-Dug. Lots of fun. This is all just soooo stoopid.
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Re: Re: I played it by Anonymous Coward on Feb 23rd, 2007 @ 2:14pm
That's how yanks say it. It actually means the same as "I couldn't care less" but they lost the negative part of the saying somewhere along the line.
Now, I agree it makes fuck all sense to someone who isn't American or knows american lingo.
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dig this by slide2k on Mar 21st, 2007 @ 5:15am
I loved the Dig- it is a great game with an excellent story. The story was written by Orson Scott Card from Enders game- easily one of the best fiction writers alive today, and produced by Stephen Spielberg. I'm not saying that this article is wrong about Lucas getting overly protective of an old game, but just because you never played the Dig doesn't mean it wasn't a great game and a really popular game.
On a related topic Orson Scott Card is currently writing and producing a new video game, so look forward to that- it's supposed to be pretty huge.
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