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The never ending Edgeventures of Tim Langdell

Alex W.

By Alex W.
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Mortis

Mortis

Posted
Posted

Surely all of these rants to the press are not going to help his appeal in any way. Especially when the multitude of inaccuracies and outright lies he tells are exposed by the other parties (who are no doubt staying quiet since he's basically digging his own hole here)

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Blu3Flame

Blu3Flame

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After all, Edge was representing itself, whereas Future had a Queen's Counsel (highest level of barrister), a solicitor advocate (a solicitor approved to appear before a high court judge like a barrister) and at least four further solicitors on its team.

Am I reading this right, Langdell represented himself in court?

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SeanR

SeanR

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It's because he can find no lawyer contemptible enough to forge evidence and bullshit for him

What's Jack Thompson doing these days?

ps

In the past few days we have written to Papazian several times to ask him to name even one person or company Edge/Langdell has ever extorted money from or one instance where Edge/Langdell has ever acted as a trademark troll

facepalm.gif

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JohnC

JohnC

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Big company in 'employing lawyers' shock.

But Langdell runs a big international company across 2 continents too. He's allegedly got other staff and everything. He's branched beyond games to hardware, magazines and movies too.

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Alex W.

Alex W.

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So, here's where we stood until this week:

Langdell had handed part of his "Edge" registration over to Future a few years ago.

EA's court settlement demanded that Langdell surrender that registration.

Langdell put in an order to do so.

Future lodged an objection, noting that they control part of the registration and did not want to surrender it.

The USPTO can't surrender just part of the trademark.

The USPTO can't reshuffle ownership so Future were the sole owners.

The court settlement in no way obliges Future to surrender their half of the registration.

And thus the court settlement was completely ineffective. Until Thursday.

Future, now a party in this cancellation proceeding, hereby requests the board to cancel US Trademark Registration Number 3,105,816 in its entirety in compliance with the Final Judgement. Future waives any objection arising from the fact that it was not a named party to the district court action or the settlement agreement.

I am sure that Langdell's recent dicking around in the press has nothing at all to do with this change of heart.

Edit- Langdell has objected, claiming that Future can't waive its right, and thus because Future wasn't represented at the original court case, the judgement is invalidated, and it is obligated to take the whole thing back to court. Which I'm not sure is an entirely accurate assessment of the situation.

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Alex W.

Alex W.

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Langdell's going on and on about how the district court case didn't reach any decisions of fact or law regarding his trademarks, and therefore the USPTO shouldn't pay any attention to its outcome, the court order requiring him to cancel the trademarks, and the settlement which that court order was based upon. Langdell's own defense of his trademarks had been that the issues in case had been decided elsewhere, pointing to a case that was settled before any decisions could be made. Thus his defense failed in that instance. I think he's decided by hasty generalisation and the principle of sympathetic magic that wherever a court case hasn't been fully argued, everything related to it can be ignored.

It sounds to me like he's itching for EA to take it back to court and get a very, very legally binding decision against him which I wholeheartedly encourage, especially now his attorneys in that case have departed and expunged any references to ever having represented him.

Edit - I'll note at this point that Future paid Langdell over a quarter of a million dollars for the Edge trademark back in 2004, and that their previous licencing agreement had expressly prohibited him from presenting himself as having any involvement in the magazine, or even mentioning that he had licenced the trademark unless someone asked him directly.

Edit 2- Some other pieces from the UK court decision that I overlooked:

* Apparently by violating his 2004 agreement with Future, he's freed the publisher from its obligation limit its use of "Edge" to magazines.

* It implies an injunction will be granted against Langdell

* It makes reference to a defense "drafted at a time when the defendants were legally represented", which suggests Langdell's lawyers did run for the hills as David Papazian suggested.

* One of Future's successful claims is that all Edge's UK trademarks are invalid for non-use.

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Alex W.

Alex W.

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In fact it seems to include Future's injunction against Langdell and the judge's refusal of his appeal.

Edit- £240,000 in legal costs alone.

Edit2- Langdell's original early '90s legal action against Future stalled indefinitely shortly after it started because he couldn't get money together to show he could meet Future's legal costs if he lost.

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Polmon

Polmon

Posted
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Future just filed a 100+ page brief on why Langdell's motion to withdraw is full of crap. Looks like it cites the recent UK decision. Should be some fun bus reading.

http://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/ttabvue-92051465-CAN-47.pdf

That's one hell of a comprehensive response from Future - the background bit actually gives a really good run-down of everything that's happened since the EA vs Langdell case. Looks like he's all out of wriggle room now.

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Eighthours

Eighthours

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Posted

Future just filed a 100+ page brief on why Langdell's motion to withdraw is full of crap. Looks like it cites the recent UK decision. Should be some fun bus reading.

http://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/ttabvue-92051465-CAN-47.pdf

My favourite bit, having trawled through all this (apart from the obvious Windows 95 stuff) is near the end, where it explains how Langdell wrote to Velocity Micro, asking them for sales figures for his videogames from 2006-2009 in order to prove that his marks had been in constant use.

The email reply Langdell submitted to the court indicated that Velocity Micro told him the sales were "way over $1m for each year". However, Future's counsel contacted the guy who'd been emailed and got copies of the actual reply Langdell received. Which said the sales were "nil". :D:lol:

Future's counsel then offered Langdell the opportunity to call the email guy to court in order to cross-examine him, in case he was mistaken. Langdell refused.

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Polmon

Polmon

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they're opposing his appeal against his loss of edge trademark, right?

and his appeal is that he doesn't recognise the authority of the district court?

Basically, Langdell is saying that the District Court judgement should be ignored as it didn't take into account that 2 of the 5 trademarks which they ordered cancelled are joint with Future. Future are saying here that a) they did take it into account, b) it's irrelevant as the District Court judgement holds regardless, and c) that they are happy for the marks to be cancelled anyway.

He's completely run out of legs to stand on; if he continues like this, he'll definitely get slapped with a contempt of court rap.

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Alex W.

Alex W.

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USPTO has come back with a motion effectively telling all sides to calm the fuck down and let them figure this out for a minute. If I'm reading it right, it's stopped the clock at the time when Langdell had filed to vacate the cancellation, and Future had filed to go ahead and cancel.

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PK

PK

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Posted

USPTO has come back with a motion effectively telling all sides to calm the fuck down and let them figure this out for a minute.

As an aside, wouldn't it be great if legalese was actually like that?

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Comrade

Comrade

Posted
Posted

Future's filed a more complete motion, including EA and Langdell's settlement documents.

http://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/ttabvue-92051465-CAN-49.pdf

Edge had moved for revocation of - get this - EA's UK trademarks on Populous and Sim Earth. On what possible grounds?

Presumably Tim believes himself to be god. And therefore owns intellectual property on all god games.

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Alex W.

Alex W.

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Langdell's continuing to file long, rambling texts arguing with Future, EA, and the USPTO, in spite of the case being frozen so no documents will be taken into consideration. Includes the famous last words "it is a common misconception amoungst attorneys that..."

One of his disputes is that he doesn't want Future acting as lead counsel for the defendants (Future and Edge are co-defendants of the marks in question, and someone has to be assigned to speak for both) but Future refuse to let him act as lead counsel because he's got no legal qualifications. They've asked the USPTO to designate the counsel.

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