Drama in the board games industry (Meeplegate)

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0:00 - Intro
0:46 - History of the word “Meeple”
2:29 - Hans im Glück trademarks Meeple
5:13 - History of the shape of the Meeple
8:04 - Hans im Glück sends Cease & Desist letter to small, independent publisher re their game Meeple Inc.
11:08 - Americans apply for US trademark of Meeple
13:16 - Support the indie publisher’s game Tabletop Inc!
14:04 - The meaning of “Hans im Glück”

Links:

“When trade marks become generic,” German Patent and Trade Mark Office:

EU Meeple (shape) trademark details:

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[ms_hansel]

Thank you for such a thoroughly well-researched and clear explanation of this whole story! Yes, I am the Alison Hansel who coined the term. I am proud of how far my little meeple has gone in the world and appreciate all the wonderful gamers like you who continue to share its little origin story and my part in it. ☺

[fricod]

Proposal: people of Hans im Glück and similar corporations are corporate people, or in short Cor-people, shall henceforth be referred to as 'Creeple'. License to freely use given to all non-corporate entities of any industry for all perpetuity.

[HunterMayer]

We had this EXACT same issue with the word "Doodle" when the makers of Doodle Jump tried to trademark "Doodle". This is after the app stores had a "doodle" section. They got big and they thought they could roll everyone with Doodle in their app name. Gamers and devs rallied against them. We used the power of the collective voice. Not continuing to fight sets a precedence of acceptance. Doodle Jump eventually backed down after dealing with the blowback. Where is the "Free the Meeple" movement.

[IsaacIsaacIsaacson]

Warner Brothers straight up holds a trademark on the name Tasmanian Devil, an actual real animal, and has previously forced the Australian state of Tasmania to pay them license fees for using the name of the animal from their state.

Meanwhile, Ugg trademarked the common Australian word "ugg" and then spent the last decade threatening Australian companies, including suing several into bankruptcy. The trademark board ruled that since its a common word in Australia but not the USA, common word protection didn't apply.

Trademark laws are disgusting

[travisbuschette]

The fact that they didn't even come up with the word, but a random player did, makes this so much worse to me for some reason. That'd be like a trading card game trying to trademark a slang term that players come up with to describe common actions in a game, like milling

[The_Real_Danger_Mouse]

This is similar to Sony Interactive trademarking Kratos for their God of War franchise. The licensing board had no idea that Kratos was a person in the ancient Greek mythos. Writers like myself were forced to change character names in previously published works in order to avoid trademark violations. The trademark board admitted to "my bad" but also ruled that they were not into denying previously granted trademarks rights. They did, however, say that they would not renew the trademark to Sony Interactive when the current trademark expired in 2023. The entire registration was summarily cancelled on 07-17-2020 over Section 8 due to the persistent effort of writers who represented themselves. This does not undue the 6 years of bulling by Sony Interactive and no penalty was applied to Sony's willful misrepresentation. A similar case by Clark Smith was brought against the Mario franchise for use of Powerups. Smith was denied damages, but Sony's trademark on powerups was nullified.

[soogymoogi]

I think a boycott is fair. I understand game designers will be collateral damage, which is unfortunate, but there's not too many other ways to express displeasure with a business's actions directly other than hitting them directly in their wallet.

[RamDragon]

I worked in the paintball industry in the early 2000's. A large company bought one of the oldest paintball companies and immediately sent out cease and desist claims to several companies, including the one i worked for. We had to shut down though there was no way the claim would hold up in court, but we couldn't fight. At a time when the industry was booming most, this company caused teh cosure of many small businesses making markers, upgrades, and custom parts.

Reminds me of the time Hasbro acquired Wizards of the Coast and Dungeons and Dragons and then tried trademarking the 20 sided dice, thinking the term "D20" gave them ownership.

[zimrasawyer]

My father is a recycling crafter, and he constantly gets letters from Jack Daniel's, Jim Beam and other large liquor companies, who say he is to cease and desist creating his lamps with their recycled bottles because he is using their trademarked imaging. Large companies lawyers love to threaten people who don't have money to access legal council.

[Nyundaa]

That trademark should never have been approved in the first place and they know it. I will absolutely be boycotting because they will not stop unless their bottom line is threatened, they will not care if a small game does well.

[tonyallen]

Meeple.

Yeah. I said it. I'm a rebel. Bring it on Hands I'm Glued

[AlexBarrGameDev]

I hate to see a big company like this bullying indies. It's just absurd. It would be like Tolkien's family suing an indie novelist for the use of "Orc" in their book despite it being used in so many books, movies and games over the years. I really wish we had better public domain laws to protect creativity.

[jonothanthrace]

After 17 years, the word "Meeple" definitely should count as a Term Of Art.

[dmDerZorn]

I am a german gamer and would-be game designer, and have never heard from this before, and I am shocked. Hans Im Glück has always been one of my first stops at Essen, and now I feel like being friends with Lego executives... dirty . What is there to be won, other than being THAT guy on the block ?

[DrMcFly]

I disagree about the boycott - the community has a responsibility to condemn behaviour such as this, and hitting big companies' profit margin is the only way to get their attention. There might be collateral damage, sure, but boardgame designers can also start reconsidering with which publishers they want to collaborate, and not affiliate with those who openly practice predatory and exploitative strategies.

[Milkymalk]

You experienced a very warped (ie., modernized and "tamed down") version of the tale. In the old version that I know (I am in my fourties, so not THAT old) Hans does not willingly "downgrade" his possession, but is talked into trading by people taking advantage of his naivety until he only has a useless rock that he throws away. The morale is to not believe everything that people tell you and use your own head when deciding what is beneficial for you.

[GargoyleBard]

The American "protective trademark" is an interesting bit of misunderstanding IP law. As in Germany, in order to hold a trademark, you have to actively use the term/symbol as a sign of your company. As long as you do so, the trademark remains valid, but if you choose not to protect it then it lapses; as a result, allowing everyone to use your trademark immediately and legally makes the trademark invalid.
Copyright and patent, on the other hand, *do* work that way, and there are numerous examples (mainly within copyright) of people copyrighting material for the purpose of protecting its free use. Creative Commons is an organization specifically founded to help people do just that, and within software the GNU General Public License is a similar license designed to contractually provide maximum freedom by taking advantage of the preexisting system, in a very real sense using the system against itself.
IP law is absolutely fascinating, and absolutely broken.

[ludwigmises]

Reminds me a Baltimore restaurant owner on Gordon Ramsay’s show. In the southern US, some people say “hon”, short for “honey”. As in, “Would you like more tea, Hon?”

The owner of “Cafe Hon” actually trademarked the word “hon” and then had the audacity to threaten legal action against neighbors for uttering the word in their establishments. All she accomplished was earning a nasty reputation and a dying restaurant. The lesson is, just because you CAN do something legally, doesn’t mean you should.

[stefanlienhard]

Ironically a company that makes such a big deal about a patent of a word has borrowed their very own name from a famous fairytale of Brother’s Grimm.

[ShiningDawn]

This gets even weirder when a game like Isle Of Cats has cat-shaped Meeples or when Root has anthropomorphic Meeples. It's gone way beyond "My people" and into the territory of any thin wooden shape used as a pawn in a board game.