WoW Guild trademarks its name
by Jennie Lees 
Feb 5th 2006 at 8:00PM
Long-running WoW and
Everquest guild "The Syndicate®" has trademarked its name in the realm of online gaming -- so if
you're part of a guild called "The Syndicate" on any server except Zul'jin, you're in trouble. Raph Koster has some commentary on this, wondering what the implications of not using
the word "syndicate" in any guild name might be.Crucially, it appears that the trademark includes "The" as well as "Syndicate", but it's still an extremely generic term for a guild. Having said that, I've never seen any Syndicates running around, so perhaps people prefer names like "Cult of the Dark Chicken" (a guild I belong to) instead.
[Thanks, m3mnoch]
Filed under: Guilds
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Harpo Feb 6th 2006 5:06PM
I think the Syndicate??? also needs to trademark the awesome design of their vintage-1997 web site. Animated gifs FTW! I halfway expected to trip over one of those digging "Under Construction" stick men.
Also, what kind of hardcore guild centralizes their activity on a carebear (or as Blizz called them, "normal") WoW server? Wussies.
joker Feb 6th 2006 10:07PM
pffft, it's not even an original name to wow. The syndicate are a mob type in the game...
Sounds like a guild that needs to get over itself.
elle Feb 8th 2006 2:12PM
If they named the Syndicate mobs after *The Syndicate(TM)*, then why does every quest involve me stealing their badges so that their leader kills them, or has someone sending me to slaughter them wholesale?
Some compliment.
Oseary Feb 10th 2006 3:21PM
I think you all should contact the members of the guild, as well as Blizzard before jumping to conclusions, and before looking like idiotic fanboys.
Silvertusk Feb 6th 2006 12:13AM
Y'know, there's a group of NPCs in World of Warcraft called "The Syndicates" ...
But, yeah. I think it's stupid to trademark a "guild name". If they even tried to harass another guild that just-so-happened to use the word "Syndicate" in their guild name, Blizzard could very likely step in and do something about it - possibly in the untrademarked guild's favour.
My two cents.
PhrozenGhost Feb 6th 2006 12:27AM
I think it's against the EulA to do this....
Larry Farnsworth Feb 6th 2006 1:17AM
Yes there is a npc group in the game of WoW called "The Syndicate"
But what you might not realize is that it was named after the real life guild called "The Syndicate" as a thank you to them for mass beta testing the game and giving Blizzard a ton of mass feedback on it.
Something to think about before you jump to conclusions.
Derek Tablak Feb 6th 2006 3:22AM
Got any proof to that Larry? Sounds like you are a member of that guild trying to justify the stupidity of it in my opinion..