Bethesda seems to spend more time in court than developing games these days; news headlines regarding the studio deal more with their various legal disputes than their highly anticipated upcoming title, Skyrim.
For those of you unfamiliar with the case, Bethesda has filed suit against Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson’s studio Mojang over their game entitled Scrolls, which Bethesda feels is a copyright infringement on their own RPG series, The Elder Scrolls.
Mojang’s legal representative, Alex Chapman, the head of interactive entertainment-focused law firm Sheridans, believes most people have the requisite brain cells to tell the two titles apart.
Speaking to Eurogamer, Chapman says, “The question here is whether the relevant consumers are or are likely to be confused into thinking that Mojang’s Scrolls game is connected with [Bethesda parent company] ZeniMax’s The Elder Scrolls series.”
“In determining the answer the judge will have to take account of a number of factors including the overall impression of the marks and the relative significance of the component words, as well as the level of sophistication of the applicable consumers and the channels through which the applicable products may be sold or marketed.”
“In simple terms would consumers buy one thinking it was connected to the other,” he explained. “We think not, given the sophistication of consumers of each game type, the types of game and the respective channels of marketing and distribution, amongst other things.”
Unfortunately, the two parties haven’t been able to reach any kind of settlement, so the case will in fact be moving on to court. At least this article was (kind of) about Skyrim. You’re welcome, Bethesda.
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