TSR TSR (2) Confirms TSR (3)'s Acquisition of Trademark (Updated!)

Jayson Elliot registered the TSR trademark back in 2011 and used it to launch Gygax Magazine along with Ernie and Luke Gygax. The two Gygax's left the company a few years later after Gary Gygax's (co-founder of TSR (1) back in the 1970s) widow, Gail Gygax, forced the closure of Gygax Magazine. Then, earlier this year, TSR (3) swooped in on the TSR trademark, after Jayson Elliot accidentally let it lapse, as TSR (2) confirms:

We have owned the TSR trademark since 2011. Last year, we missed a filing date, and another company registered it, though we are still using it in commerce. While we could win a lawsuit, we frankly don't have the money to litigate. So, we're licensing it back from them.

As a result, there are two companies now using the name TSR. You can tell when it's us because we're the only ones using the new logo.

They're opening a museum in Lake Geneva at the old TSR house, and we wish them success with it, it's important to celebrate the legacy that Gary Gygax created.

Ernie Gygax, formerly of TSR (1) under Gary Gygax, then working with Jayson Elliot as part of TSR (2), is one of the founders of of TSR (3), and confirmed in his (now infamous) interview --

The other TSR is a licensee because [Jayson Elliot] let it lapse. But he had absolutely ... love for the game and the products. There was no reason to say 'oh you've screwed up, oh it's all ours, ha ha ha ha!' Instead, Justin [LaNasa] came to him and said ... we love that you're doing Top Secret things, we have a much broader goal for the whole thing. But there's no reason for you to stop or even have any troubles. Justin said, I'll take care of the paperwork, you just give me $10 a year, and you put out all this love for old school gaming that you can. And we appreciate that you were there to try and pick up things, and you produced Gygax Magazine, for in its time that you're also working on a game that you love to play ... because Top Secret was Jayson's love, as a young man.

TSR (2), still run by Jayson Elliot, publishes Top Secret, and is not connected to TSR (3) other than now having to license it’s own name from them. TSR (3) has also registered the trademark to Star Frontiers, a game owned by and still currently sold by D&D-owner WotC.

In other news the GYGAX trademark appears to have lapsed.

UPDATE! TSR (2) has decided NOT to license its own name from TSR (3):

Update to our earlier tweet - we will NOT be licensing anything from the new company claiming rights to the TSR logos. We are not working with them in any fashion.

 

[Bacon Bits]

No, we're not using that symbol in ANY context on my website, please. I'd appreciate you editing it out. Thanks.

Done. My apologies.

 

[Nilonym]

Also could anyone who is a lawyer confirm the situation if you trademark the name of someone else's pre-existing business because I'm not sure that TSR (2) aren't being conned here in addition to everything else.

IANAL, but I am lay-experienced with copyright law, and TSR (2) would be highly likely to prevail in court. Demonstrating prior use in commerce is a stronger argument than the date you apply for a copyright with the USPTO. But one of the core mechanics of copyright law is that you have to defend your rights, and that means legal bills. TSR (2) has the superior claim and could certainly file an objection to TSR (3)s application and prevail, but it would cost in the tens of thousands to do so.

 

[Nilonym]

Double post deleted

 

[Staffan]

I cannot guarantee that Ernie Gygax will succeed in clearing his father's name. But do not speak ill of the dead, is a common enough saying,. Especially seeing how now, so many D&D players have recently increased the amount of negativity they associate with Gary Gygax, D&D's godfather, and even to quote his alignment system, being somewhat evil.

If you refuse to "speak ill of" or criticize the dead, you are implicitly endorsing them, which runs the risk of canonizing their poor choices and decisions.
Here are some quotes by Gary Gygax about how paladins and other Lawful Good characters should behave. I have no problem saying that this is completely and utterly wrong, and reflects a wicked worldview.

 

[imagineGod]

If you refuse to "speak ill of" or criticize the dead, you are implicitly endorsing them, which runs the risk of canonizing their poor choices and decisions.
Here are some quotes by Gary Gygax about how paladins and other Lawful Good characters should behave. I have no problem saying that this is completely and utterly wrong, and reflects a wicked worldview.

Paladins in fantasy are inspired by many, not all real life paladins that did just that.

Remember, if you speak ill of the dead today and take a moral high horse position, it is likely your own actions will be judged below some future standard for humanity.

The fact throughout human history all across the world we as a species that built multiple civilizations could not arrive even today on a universal standard means you can never judge the past by today's standards without being a hypocrite to future generations.

 

[LongTimeLurker]

Lol. I wouldn't give anyone associated with either company a dime. Grifters, the lot of the m, trying to milk E.G.G. Seniors name for every cent that they can. Jr and Luke have an abyssmal track record and Jim Ward has been suspect since he published "Angry Mothers From Heck" in dragon magazine (we won't mention his 3E company Fast Forward Entertainment except to say it produced the most utter rubbish possible).

 

[Neonchameleon]

I cannot guarantee that Ernie Gygax will succeed in clearing his father's name. But do not speak ill of the dead, is a common enough saying,. Especially seeing how now, so many D&D players have recently increased the amount of negativity they associate with Gary Gygax, D&D's godfather, and even to quote his alignment system, being somewhat evil.

But Ernie Gygax isn't going to clear his father's name the way he's going and doesn't seem to even trying to be. What he's actually doing is dragging it through the mud and trying to make money from his father's legacy.

99% if not more of D&D players have no strong feelings on Gygax, one way or the other. To them he's the now dead man who invented D&D and there's no reason to speak of him at all. He's had a minor but positive impact. Ernie Gygax on the other hand, by trying to defend some of his father's worse decisions is turning them into a controversy people will have heard of while encouraging people to come with receipts.

Ernie Gygax is also trading sleazily on his father's name. He's messed up at kickstarter. He's now sleazily obtained the TSR trademark. And he's trying to use residual good feelings towards his father's work because so far as I can tell that is all he has to offer. If there's anyone currently tarnishing the name Gygax it's Ernie. And as he makes his fails in ways that reflect his father he's reminding everyone of the bad rather than the good of his father.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Paladins in fantasy are inspired by many, not all real life paladins that did just that.

Remember, if you speak ill of the dead today and take a moral high horse position, it is likely your own actions will be judged below some future standard for humanity.

And this is a problem because ...?

I for one will be delighted if future generations hold standards I can at most aspire to.

The fact throughout human history all across the world we as a species that built multiple civilizations could not arrive even today on a universal standard means you can never judge the past by today's standards without being a hypocrite to future generations.

Nonsense. There pretty much is a universal standard in The Golden Rule in its many variant expressions. Treat others as you would want to be treated.

 

[Reef]

When Disney puts blanket disclaimers in front of old cartoons or there's warnings in front of old Loony Tunes, Tom & Jerry, etc, I don't view those as "tarnishing the legacy" of the creators. I think few people do. It's not like when a studio digitally removed Kevin Spacey from a film and replaced him with another actor.
I don't think Wizards is calling out a specific designer, and if we want to look at history, late era TSR was far more "cancelling" Gygax ... Even if only for financial reasons.

Yes, I definitely don’t see any stigma attached to a warning that basically says “This was produced long enough ago that certain social mores have changed”. It’s so common nowadays (when so much historical media is at our digital fingers) that I don’t even blink at it. WOTC does it, Disney does it. Heck, even my dvds of the original Sesame Street episodes does it, and no is trying to vilify Sesame Street.

Times change…you just have to watch any comedy movie from the 70’s or 80’s to see that. The jokes, misogyny, and ‘charming sexual assault’ that was prevalent wouldn’t fly today. Doesn’t mean we still can’t watch the classics…and there were some great movies, it just means we talk about it with our son after watching them. The equivalent of the above mentioned disclaimer.

The original D&D games carry a lot of the same blind assumptions that were prevalent in most of society in the 70’s. I don’t blame Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, or any of the others for that. However, if they were out there today still holding that line on gender, race, or what have you, then I’d be looking at them askew. It’s why Ernie Gygax’s comments on gender this week bother me, but I can still appreciate the origins of this hobby.

 

[imagineGod]

And this is a problem because ...?

I for one will be delighted if future generations hold standards I can at most aspire to.

Nonsense. There pretty much is a universal standard in The Golden Rule in its many variant expressions. Treat others as you would want to be treated.

Absolute nonsense, because if a universal code existed, it would have been followed millennia or even centuries ago by all. It is not, because over all recorded history many humans have still not accepted there is a universal standard for our whole species.

Obviously, we can dare to dream, but since the first civilization was founded no such thing has happened in reality for all humanity.