It seems as if Tim Langdell has been bullying video game companies for a long time, and now he’s butting heads with one company that refuses to back down. Electronic Arts has submitted a 28 page petition to the United States Patent and Trademark Office to revoke Langdell’s trademarks. Langdell has claimed that he owns the trademark to the word edge.
EA released a game called “Mirror’s Edge”. Langdell’s website shows that he has a game called MIRRORS “in development” but with no release date. Langdell crossed paths with EA when he claimed that their already released and acclaimed game Mirror’s Edge would cause confusion in the market.
See EA’s motion to nullify Langdell’s trademark here.
See the EuroGamer article here.
Tim Langdell has been in business since the 1980s, and has not produced a game since 1994. EA is claiming that because he has not utilized the edge trademark recently, there would be no financial loss.
Langdell has challenged video companies before, and most of them have paid him off quietly. One iPhone developer caught in the crossfire had to watch while Apple pulled his app from the US and EU iPhone app store because of the copyright conflict. Langdell claimed that the iPhone game was being mixed up with Langdell’s game company.
Langdell’s game was released in the 1980s. The last game that the EDGE game company has actually released was in 1990.
(Langdell’s company website looks extremely pathetic. The 700+ titles he has listed as creating are actually only about 100- he counts each platform release as a seperate title. Honestly. Seriously.)
The iPhone app, released by Mobigames and created by David Papazian, was released in 2009.
Langdell is arguing that the iPhone developer should choose an “entirely different” name for their app.
Eurogamer also provides an in-depth and headache inducing summary of Langdell’s career here.
This whole situation seems ridiculous. Edge is a commonly used word. The fact that Langdell has also tried to petition for a copyright for the word EDGY doesn’t help. All Langdell seems to do is spend all of his time suing people instead of creating games.
I personally feel as if Langdell is behaving reprehensibly. A recent claim he has filed for was for a trademark for the title “Edge of Twilight”, despite the fact another game development company had a game with a similar name in development for over two years. In video game news circles, he has developed the nickname the “trademark troll“.
The International Game Developers Association called for Tim Langdell to be booted off of the Board of Directors. IGDA said that his actions have gone against the mission statement of their organization.
Langdell resigned before the IGDA could take action.
It won’t be so easy for him to run from EA Games.
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