How the Internet Helped Stoic Battle King’s Trademark Dispute

EDGE has penned a relatively brief but extremely significant piece on the legal battle between Stoic and King over The Banner Saga’s trademark. Apparently the public reaction was pivotal and greatly helped the indie developers resolve the dispute without a prolonged (and potentially very costly) legal battle:

Stoic’s plight caught the public’s attention in late January 2014, despite the action having been filed in summer 2013, quickly becoming a lightning rod for support against a perceived culture of litigation. Many angry words were typed, but what really outraged a few was the sense of a big corporation steamrollering the little guy on a technicality. (It was just a matter of procedure for them,) Watson says. (They didn’t know anything about our project; they didn’t care.)

It’s a frustrating and frightening position to be put in, and corporate face-saving didn’t help. (Their PR team put out a statement that said something like, ‘˜Oh, no, we don’t think The Banner Saga is in conflict with our thing at all. Their statement was completely in conflict with their legal action.)

On its lawyer’s advice, Stoic was going to let it go unchallenged, but Watson tells us a lunch meeting with (some pretty high-powered guys) in the industry convinced the team otherwise. Stoic’s reply (was a bit snarky, but it was basically pointing out that their statement was bullshit).

With King preparing to go public, it could ill afford the sustained negative publicity. (We got a call from the head of the company, from King. He was very polite, very consolatory and wanted to make it stop,) says Watson. (We ended up working out an agreement with him.)

(The cool story here for us,) Jorgensen says, (was seeing the groundswell of people on the Internet. Had that not happened, we’d still be fighting this trademark dispute. No question.)