Aihuxn.145 net.games.rogue utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!duke!chico!harpo!floyd!houxi!ihnss!ihuxn!otto Sat Feb 20 00:46:02 1982 Who controls the use of xorn, etc. The question of protection for names has been, as I understand the situation, dealt with legally and certain rules have been developed. The reason why names such as "scotch tape" and "cellophane" are no longer under the control of those who invented them is because they did not aggressively defend their rights to them when the names were used by others, especially when used in a business context. Xerox, on the other hand, has apparently taken sufficient legal action to demonstrate to the courts that it has fought unrestricted use of its name in a business context. Maybe we should set up a test situation, selling paper as "Xerox Paper" to see how long it takes someone from Xerox to get in touch with us about our use of their name. As I understand it, many of the monster names in AD&D were invented by Gary Gygyx(sp?), and therefore he has control over the use of them unless he loses that right through failure to defend it. Since TSR is making money on these names through licensing agreements with various companies, it seems this is an important question to be resolved by all concerned. Perhaps this should be taken up in net.free-legal-advice (worth every penny paid for it). George Otto Bell Labs, Indian Hill ihnss!ihuxi!otto ---------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.