Rob's article on IP law

[Matt James]

http://www.loremaster.org/content.php/175-Protection-from-Chaos-Part-V-To-GSL-or-Not-to-GSL

My comments section is not working while I fix some lingering issues. Feel free to discuss his article here. It's a great read!

[Michael Brewer]

Excellent series!

I was wondering about Rob's thoughts on the nominative use of Trademarks in a product. Specifically in a situation where a product or service cannot be readily identified without the use of the trademark. A real world example is aftermarket automotive parts. The manufacturer has to identify the make/model for which the part is for and thus using trademarks like "Ford Fusion" is acceptable (as long as the manufacturer only uses as much of the mark as necessary and endorsement is not implied)

Couldn't this concept also be applied towards Power names in a third party character builder, thus allowing for use of "Sly Flourish" when creating a Rogue?

[gaming tonic]

As I have stated elsewhere this is the best continuing series on this subject on the internet. You will find lots of posts and threads of chatter about this but most seem uninformed or bitter. I would never want to do anything that monkeyed with someone's IP and I have learned a lot from Matt's feedback since he is very established in the industry and writes some for WOTC among others which is where the OGL has relevance. Matt if it is cool with you I would love to link back to this article off my site so my few (c'mon my site is a week old) readers could maybe find their way here to learn something called the truth. Thanks again and I will continue to follow along.

[Matt James]

No problem. Linking is fine :)

[bonenaga]

I've really enjoyed reading Rob's articles and they've cleared up a number of misconceptions that I had picked up from the forums. Now that 5e is announced, I am curious as to whether or not someone else could put out a 4e clone similar to what Pathfinder did despite the lack of an open SRD like what 3e had. Obviously whether they actually do it would depend on many other factors, I'm just curious about the legality of it.