Microsoft are ending the year much like the started it, facing an avalanche of lawsuits. A week ago Real Networks, creators of Real Player and the Real media format, started the new wave of assaults with a suit claiming that Microsoft was using its Windows operating system to, unfairly, promote its Media Player software. Microsoft refuted the claims made by Real Networks in a statement issued the next day, accusing the company of first taking advantage of Windows in order to become successful and then attacking the OS in order to avoid further competition.
The latest legal action against MS and probably the last for this year, is far more interesting and involves a game Microsoft are about to publish, Mythica.
Fairfax Virginia based, Mythic Entertainment, developer and publisher of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Dark Age of Camelot, and many other online games, announced that it has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft Corporation for trademark infringement and unfair competition.
We have worked hard for eight years to earn our reputation for producing high quality online games, including games that compete successfully with those offered by the biggest corporations in the world, such as Microsoft, Mark Jacobs, president and CEO of Mythic
Entertainment, said. We cannot allow Microsoft to usurp our rights, confuse the public, and use the Mythic brand to gain an unfair competitive advantage.
The case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, in Alexandria, alleges that Microsoft's forthcoming online game, Mythica, and pre-release publicity for such game, infringes Mythic's name and federally-registered trademark MYTHIC ENTERTAINMENT, and amounts to unfair competition in violation of federal and state law.
The complaint alleges that the term Mythica is so similar to Mythic's registered mark and name as to be likely to cause confusion, mistake or deception among consumers. Mythic is seeking a permanent injunction and economic remedies. Mythic Entertainment objected to Microsoft's use of Mythica previously, but Microsoft refused to stop using the name.
As you can probably understand no company wants to face Microsoft in court and Mythic Entertainment certainly tried to find some way but Microsoft refused to negotiate.
Microsoft's Mythica is described as a MMORPG which casts the player in the role of an immortal in the mythological world of the Norse gods. Strangely enough the name is not the only thing MS's game shares with Mythic Entertainment since their MMORPG, Dark Age of Camelot, is also centered around Norse Mythology.
The first impressions suggest that Mythic Entertainment do have some sort of case but it is obviously too soon to to judge since Microsoft are refusing to comment on the case at this time. Perhaps the best thing to come out of this story is the comment made by Mythic Entertainment's CEO Mr. Jacobs: We would expect Microsoft to react no differently if someone launched an operating system called Microsofta just as Microsoft did when confronted with an operating system called Lindows.
