Notch Offers To Drop “Scrolls” Name, Bethesda Sues Anyway
We all know this giant Mojang vs. Bethesda thing has been happening for a while. Needless to say, none of us know all of the particulars, and even with the available documents we have no idea what all is actually happening. It’s hard to decipher lawyer speak, and it’s even more difficult when the lawyer speak is in Swedish.
Kotaku wrote up a piece about the warring factions and showed their bias. Even though it’s fine and dandy to have an opinion, you know you must have tip-toed over a line when one of the people you’re writing about goes out of their way to address what you talk about in their blog. Markus “Notch” Persson wrote in his blog today that he wanted to clarify a few things:
We realized we should apply for the trademark “Minecraft” to protect our brand. When doing so, we also sent in an application for “Scrolls”. When Bethesda contacted us, we offered both to change the name to “Scrolls: [some subtitle]” and to give up the trademark.
They refused on both counts.
Whatever reason they have for suing us, it’s not a fear of us having a trademark on the word “Scrolls”, as we’ve offered to give that up.
While I can’t say that I know exactly what’s happening, I can say that I’m rooting for Mojang, and the available evidence points to Bethesda being a stick in the mud. They should have just played Quake and gotten this whole thing over with.
