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Renowned UK development industry forum The Chaos Engine has come together to rally against notorious ‘trademark troll’ and current IGDA board member Tim Langdell.
The trademark-chasing nature of Langdell’s operation was once again brought under scrutiny after French independent developer Mobigame was forced to withdraw its award-winning iPhone game EDGE from Apple’s App Store. Langdell allegedly claimed that the game was an infringement on his trademark over the word Edge.
According to the forum, Mobigame – who own the trademark to the name ‘EDGE’ in France – offered to rename the game to EDGY in other markets, but Langdell apparently refused and then subsequently applied for the ‘EDGY’ trademark in the US.
The Chaos Engine and its 7,000-strong membership have gone as far as to establish a fund to aid Mobigame in what could be a long legal dispute.
"We think it’s important that Langdell not be allowed to bludgeon small companies with esoteric trademark laws," said Paddy Sinclair, CEO of Proper Games.
"Games may be a fun and light-hearted product, but this is still a professional industry. There’s no room for schoolyard tactics to extort money and claim unearned fame."
"Langdell needs to be stopped and anyone else who thinks it’s okay to take advantage of small game companies needs to know we’re not isolated, easy targets," added Yacine Salmi, an industry veteran and current IGDA member.
[UPDATE: Organisers from The Chaos Engine have contacted us to say that donations to the Mobigame fund are welcomed at mobigame@gmail.com. We’re told that it goes ‘direct to Mobigame, but members of TCE have access to it to validate transparency and provide running totals.’ A button will soon be added to the frontpage of The Chaos Engine, if you’re worried that we might have just made that link up to scam a bit of money.]
