POSTED BY

Brandon Boyer

AT 2:06 PM
Thursday June 11, 2009

Indie • Industry • iPhone

edge • mobigame • tim langdell

Edge of madness: the copyfight between Mobigame and Tim Langdell

edgetitlescreen.jpgApologies for the title, as this actually refers to a trademark dispute, but I can't think of a short-form pun that works as well (trade-lark?). Either way, there needs to be a brighter light shone on this ongoing struggle that's been waging since the tail end of May, but has gone too overlooked due both to E3 information overload, and the long interim process of gathering all the relevant information, which now has finally come to a head.

Rather than guiding you through the sordid details in their entirety, I point you instead to fantastic summaries recently written up by both Gamasutra director Simon Carless, and Derek Yu at TIGSource -- the latter's community has been doing staggering due diligence at sniffing out the facts over the past few weeks.

But here's the long and the short: iPhone game creators Mobigame -- the French studio behind retro-future cubist platformer Edge have been locked in an ongoing battle with one Tim Langdell, trademark owner of the word 'Edge' since his early 80s home computer publishing house Edge Games was in operation, who has since been vociferously defending the mark at all opportunities, when clear common sense would dictate that there'd be laughably little dilution with his sparse output since the days of the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64.

langdell.pngA short list of the companies that have apparently settled with Langdell and licensed the name or otherwise stepped out of his way include UK magazine Edge, Namco -- whose Soul Edge game would be released in the west as Soul Blade, 1997 Anthony Hopkins movie The Edge, Malibu comics character Edge and any Marvel comic with the word in the title... the list goes on, but out of all the heavy hitters that have conceded, Langdell has finally met his angriest and noisiest match in the one place he probably least expected it: the indie game community.

Langdell has, of course, maintained his right to the mark, and has further claimed that Mobigame has undertaken what amounts to a PR war against him, but since that late May day, the facts have been piling up against him. Chief, in my mind, is the allegation by Mobigame that after informing Langdell that they'd be happy to withdraw any claims and change the name of their game to Edgy, Langdell immediately filed a new trademark on exactly that name (and the name does appear in the trademark database, filed some days before the App Store removal).

mirrorsgamefromedge.jpgDigging through Langdell's various websites (which over the past few weeks have been in a state of flux as the TIGSource community brings new details to light) also brings truckloads of what can only be deliberately obfuscating details: Langdell's company lists as forthcoming a game for PC, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PSP, DS and iPhone (a remarkable achievement of crossplatform coordination) called Mirrors, which, as above, was originally marked on the site as "Mirrors a new game from Edge" -- surely not at all an attempt to goad Electronic Arts/DICE into a legal battle over their own Mirror's Edge, as surely not as his moves to trademark Mirrors Spore and Soul Spore in the UK (search yourself) at roughly the same time he filed his Edgy claim.

I'll openly admit that I have been doing nothing but impassively watching this entire ordeal unfold, from the time Carless first caught wind of the dispute and wrote his original article -- briefly removed, under perceived legal threat from Langdell.

There was even a time where some of the angriest comments churning through the TIGSource forum thread on the debacle had me wondering if Langdell was a victim of a massively overblown misunderstanding, and if the quirkiness of his attempts to extend the Edge mark even into offering sub-orbital space flights lent him some demented charm.

But having read now the full accounts from Mobigame and associates, and earlier accounts from other developers when Edge Games was actively publishing games, and even Langdell's own defenses in various other comment threads calling for his removal from the International Game Developers Association, it's becoming increasingly clear that there is full-on bullying at work here, and it's not from Mobi's attempts to simply keep their iPhone platformer on the market.

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12 Comments

earbox

#1 – 6:37 PM June 11, 2009

Soul Edge and Soul Calibur are different games (the latter is a sequel to the former). Soul Edge was renamed Soul Blade for its western home releases, but retained its original title in arcades.

Brandon Boyer

#2 – 6:58 PM June 11, 2009

You must've caught this just before my correction -- but quite right you are.

Mr_Staypuft

#3 – 7:48 PM June 11, 2009

Wow, what a strange co-incidence that the word "edge" in this picture...

has *exactly* the same font & spacing as that from the famous UK magazine?

PS: Dear Tim Langdell, @#$% off. Love, gamers.

earbox

#4 – 7:57 PM June 11, 2009

I'm just that awesome, Brandon.

Martin O'London

#5 – 4:51 AM June 12, 2009

Blimey, U2 better look out!
And 'Edge of Darkness', new film with Mel Gibson

Reminds me of the Warner Bros v Marx Bros upset over the use of 'Casablanca':

"You claim that you own Casablanca and that no one else can use that name without permission. What about “Warner Brothers”? Do you own that too? You probably have the right to use the name Warner, but what about the name Brothers? Professionally, we were brothers long before you were. "
( Read the rest at http://www.chillingeffects.org/resource.cgi?ResourceID=31)

airshowfan

#6 – 7:59 AM June 12, 2009

How does U2's guitarist feel about all this?

webmonkees

#7 – 8:37 AM June 12, 2009

I propose we found a new company called Monster™ Edge™ and color the logo magenta™.

The snake will eat itself.

BobF

#8 – 1:50 PM June 14, 2009

Brandon, I agree that Tigsource and others have done a good job of researching this topic, but I disagree with your summary.

First, the research showed that Mobigame made a mistake and that mistake started this dispute. So the attack on Edge/Langdell seems fundamentally unfair to me. It all looks like a deliberate smear campaign to me. There has been wide agreement Edge Games had the law on their side. Mobigame/Papazian should have checked the trademark registries before they chose the name of their game, so chosing EDGE as the name when Edge Games own that registered trademark was a big mistake by Mobigame.

Second, there is no evidence at all from all the research done that Edge/Langdell had any disputes with Marvel, UK Edge Magazine, the The Edge movie, etc, and certainly no one has done more than wildly speculate that Edge did any settlements with those people. From all the research so far, that seems to all have been just false rumor aimed at smearing Langdell/Edge. In fact after all the research no one has come up with any evidence that Langdell/Edge have ever sued anyone over the trademark Edge. That was all just part of the smear campaign to get readers to think Edge Games is litigious when in fact apparently it isn't. Edge's website says they are partners with Future (no hint of a dispute or settlement) and it also says they purchased the rights to Edge from Marvel. Again no hint of a dispute or settlement. Carless just wanted you to believe that is how Langdell/Edge does business when in fact there is no evidence for it.

Carless clearly wanted us to think that hearings in trademark offices (like the Namco case) are 'law suits' but they aren't. They are just trademark application hearings that companies do all the time. For all I know, Edge has probably done far fewer than similar companies, so this was probably deliberately misleading.

Then it turns out (in his own blog on Gamasutra) that Simon Carless deliberately quoted from a Virginia Court order that he knew had been reversed with Edge/Langdell found innocent. Add to this the fact that in trying to prove that Langdell's wife's name is "cheri davis langdell" Simon Carless linked us to a page about the Edge Garfield game that has no mention of "Cheri Davis" (but does mention Cheri Langdell and Jim Davis, creator of Garfield) and this all starts to stink of Carless abusing his powers as a journalist to smear Edge Games, and Langdell personally just for being the CEO of Edge, when Edge was just doing what it is legally meant to do to protect its trademark.

Then there is Carless' accusation that Langdell/Edge got Mobigame's iPhone game unceremoniously removed from iTunes. That turned out to be untrue, too, with Papazian finally admitting a week later that he voluntarily took the game down in the US and UK because Edge had proven it owned registerd trademarks in those countries and Mobigame's attorney had said they need to take the game down.

Carless suggesting Edge is overly agressive needs consideration too. Carless' own company's trademark is "Think Services" which because you can't trademark "services" means Carless lays claim to the trademark "Think". And he is saying Edge is wrong to protect its common word trademark "Edge" when this is being written by a guy who will sue you in a heartbeat if you use "Think" over a game for the "Apple" iPod? Talk about two-faced.

The fact is, as Tigsource and others confirmed with their research, if you own a trademark then to keep it if anyone uses it you have to send them a 'cease and desist notice' -- that is a letter saying "stop using the mark or we will sue you." So Edge didnt act agressively, not any more than Think or Apple or anyone else protecting their trademark when they send out C&D letters, Edge just did what it is legally meant to do.

As to that Edgy red-herring, Papazian himself confirmed that he thought he had worked out a deal with Edge to rename the game Edgy but then Edge made clear it would need to be under a license from Edge if the new name was going to be so close to the word Edge. So its obvious why Edge registered Edgy, because it thought it had a deal with Papazian to license it for free, but Papazian changed his mind. Papazian also admitted that Edge had not asked for money for the Edgy deal so I still wonder who is acting badly here. Seems to me like Edge bent over backwards to get a settlement with Mobigame and Papazian has just been stubborn.

You have to ask yourself, why after all these weeks hasn't Mobigame renamed their game something really different from "Edge" given they know now that Edge is the registered mark of Edge Games and Future Publishing? Why did Papazian file to register the mark Edge himself in Europe (including the UK) and the US when Papazian knows Edge and Future own the registered mark Edge in both the US and UK?

Are you sure Mobigame is so innocent in all this? I'm not so sure. You called Mobigame's game "retro" and guess what, the game it is at least inspired by Edge's game "Bobby Bearing" (Mobigame's game looks nothing like Marble Madness but it looks a lot like Bobby Bearing with a cube instead of a ball). Papazian creates a game based on Edge's Bobby Bearing and calls it Edge? Coincidence? I don't think so.

ahahha

#9 – 10:35 AM June 15, 2009

hey Tim Langdell! you are still posting with a false name? Joe, Mopius, and now Bob... what an asshole!

ahahha

#10 – 10:36 AM June 15, 2009

hey Tim Langdell! you are still posting with a false name? Joe, Mopius, and now Bob... what an asshole!

No I'm Edge, and so's my wife

#11 – 6:33 PM August 7, 2009

The case with Namco was settled in Namco's favour - in other words: Langdell lost.

Also, there really is no evidence that Edge Magazine have ever had anything to do with him. I own every issue of Edge since #1 and I've checked through loads of them this evening - not a single one makes a reference to Edge Interactive Media or the name being licensed, although it is true that since issue 183, they mention that "Edge is a registered trademark of Future Publishing Limited" in the editorial at the front.

As for BOBF above being Langdell; I doubt it. He says "Edge's website says they are partners with Future", but the website doesn't say this at all. There is a very misleading statement that tries to hint at such a partnership, but it stops just short enough to avoid litigation. If BOBF were Langdell, I'm sure he wouldn't dare to draw attention to such a transparent obvious and shameless attempt at piggybacking off someone else's success.

No I'm Edge, and so's my wife

#12 – 6:49 PM August 7, 2009

@BOBF: You have to ask yourself, why after all these weeks hasn't Mobigame renamed their game something really different from "Edge" given they know now that Edge is the registered mark of Edge Games and Future Publishing? Why did Papazian file to register the mark Edge himself in Europe (including the UK) and the US when Papazian knows Edge and Future own the registered mark Edge in both the US and UK?

Because trademarks are registered under particular categories and I believe Future Publishing have the "Edge" trademark registered under category 16, which includes printed material but certainly not videogames.

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