Rage Against The Convoluted 'Rage' Trademark Dispute
from the ragey-rage-rage dept
While Id Software is not a complete stranger to lame and opportunistic intellectual property disputes, I have to say the latest dispute involving the video gaming giant has me scratching my head. Via Newsweek, we learn that a small three-person game studio out of Costa Rica, called Green Lava Studios, is being forced to change the name of a port of its PC game, Fenix Rage, for its console release. Have you guessed why yet? No? Well, that’s probably because the issue is over Id Software’s game R.A.G.E., originally released in 2011. Id Software sent Green Lava Studios a cease and desist letter, citing its trademark on the word “rage” for the purposes of video games.
In October 2011, id Software developed and released a game called RAGE. The 3-D post-apocalyptic game received fairly positive reviews, but has since been largely forgotten. Three years later, in September 2014, Green Lava Studios released Fenix Rage on PC. Fenix Rage is a 2-D game in which players have to guide a superhero through hundreds of incredibly difficult puzzle-like levels. Nearly a full year after Fenix Rage’s release, the game was about to be ported to the Playstation 4 and Xbox One when the legal threat arrived.
“We were told we would have to change our name or take this to court,” Ramírez tells Newsweek. “That is not an option because we don’t have the resources to do that.” Ramírez was running a three-man development team, small by the standards of most game studios, and felt he had an obligation to actually release a game.
You may be wondering, as I was when originally looking into this, how it came to be that Id Software was challenging the release of the console version of a game that had already been released for PCs in 2014 without issue. The answer appears to be that Id software only registered the trademark for “Rage” in 2015, long after the release of its game, and long after the release of Green Lava Studios’ Fenix Rage game on PC.
While the name Fenix Rage would have to be changed for consoles, it can still be sold as Fenix Rage on PC. This is because id Software trademarked the word “Rage” on January 12, 2015, after Fenix Rage had already been released on PC.
“The game would be already launched,” Ramírez said when asked how much this whole affair has delayed the studio. “We’ve been delayed around six months now, and counting.”
I’m going to summarize this, because when you put the timeline in a single instance, none of this makes sense: Id Software releases R.A.G.E. in 2011, Green Lava releases Fenix Rage on PC in 2014, Id Software trademarks “rage” in early 2015 and then disputes the release of a console port of Green Lava’s PC game in late 2015 on into 2016. Let’s not lose site of the key point in this: Fenix Rage has already been made and released. The console version is a port of that game. But now, because of the threat of the much larger Id Software and its trademark on the word “rage” granted several years after the release of its game, Green Lava is capitulating and changing the name of its console version.
The legal action completely demoralized the team at Green Lava Studios. ”It was really sad,” Ramírez said. “We got this award, the GameMaker Showcase Game of the Year. It was the first award our country had gotten for game making. We got it with the name Fenix Rage. That’s something we cannot mention now on consoles.”
Green Lava Studios ultimately settled on Fenix Furia for its console release. “We wanted to get a name and keep the same ‘rage’ attitude.” Ramírez said. “It’s a raging game, after all.”
This, of course, is not what trademarks are for. Nowhere is anyone seriously going to believe there is any customer confusion at the heart of this. Rather, this is Id Software being Id Software and stomping on a small game studio in another country, seemingly for no other reason than because it can. Green Lava Studios should fight this, because it would likely win any dispute for any number of reasons. But you can’t blame the much smaller company for being wary of a legal battle with a larger company. Trademark bullying, at its best.
Filed Under: fenix rage, r.a.g.e., rage, trademark
Companies: green lava studios, id software
Comments on “Rage Against The Convoluted 'Rage' Trademark Dispute”
Never heard of prior art like “Rage of Mages”?
Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Mar 4th, 2016 @ 4:04pm
Prior art does not apply to trademark. It’s first to file that matters. Except in common law instances. Ok, it’s a complete mess.
Should have renamed it Furia Egardi.
Other video games containing the word “Rage”:
Wordrage
Brick Rage
Soccer Rage
Streets of Rage 1-3
Alien Rage
Rage Runner
Cyborg Rage
Rhino’s Rago
Kung Fury: Street Rage
Rage Parking Simulator 2016
Go Home – Rage Incoming
Red Road Rage
Russian Road Rage 3D
Rush Hour Road Rage
The Simpsons Road Rage
Celtic Kings: Rage of War
Tales of Maj’eyal: Embers of Rage
And that’s just a quick 10 minute search, not comprehensive. Should this not make the trademark invalid?
Re: Re:
Doesn’t work like that that mate.
The more pressing question is why Blizzard hasn’t tried to sue them for the use of “Fenix” yet.
Which I think, while obviously based on “phoenix”, is actually a non-generic trademark.
Re: Re:
Um, fenix IS phoenix, in Spanish.
Re: Re: Re:
Ah, live and learn then.
Not really ID
Don’t forget that ID was bought by Zenimax. Now a larger company of lawyers own ID, and are busy “monetizing” everything they can from the wreckage of the former developer. I’m surprised they took so long to get around to trademarking “rage” after buying ID, and wonder how much of the rest of ID’s games are in the process of being trademarked.
I am confused. Did ID trademark R.A.G.E or the word ‘rage’ or both. R.A.G.E is not the word rage.
Should have renamed it
Fenix D.O.O.M.
When will the trademark office understand to survey reject trademark application on single common words?
People could still use them, just without trademark.
Sounds like a judge
Anytime the stupid meter swings to full its usually something from the lawyer hog pen.
A judge is nothing but the largest and most odorous turd to float to the top of the legal cesspool.
May I suggest crowdsourcing their defense?
Agree, but ID's trademark registrations date back to 2011/2012
I know little about the current video game scene but I agree that there should be no confusion, as there are a number of games using the word, and a quick search of the USPTO database finds a number of registered marks in class 9 (software) with the word “game or games” in the goods claim. It would seem ID is not exclusive with the word RAGE.
That said, I’m seeing several RAGE trademarks owned by ID that date back to 2011 and 2012, and nothing that became registered in 2015, so I’m wondering if the statement in the original article and repeated here that “id Software trademarked the word “Rage” on January 12, 2015” is in fact accurate.
Re: Agree, but ID's trademark registrations date back to 2011/2012
Rereading the Newsweek article, it’s hard to figure out if their concern is a US trademark or a Costa Rican trademark.
Green Lava says “In the system in Costa Rica, that would take years to solve” but they may be confused. I know I am.
Minor nit: it’s not “Id Software”, or (as some in the comments have had it) “ID Software”, but – as the quoted article correctly uses it – “id Software”. The correct spelling of the name is with the first word in all lowercase.