I called USPTO.gov today and was told nothing can be done until after 1/9/18. At that point we can protest again? I don't understand it either. I might need to lawyer-up to protect myself. Or wait for a cease and desist? I mean a DMCA would take the sites down in a heartbeat...
That really, really sucks about the time & money you've put into the site here. Would it be possible to rename the domain? I don't know how this works.
I mean, I could, that would be relatively easy, BUT I lose all the SEO juice I've built up over a year. If you type LitRPG or "What is LitRPG" into Google, I come up pretty high. That makes me a target, I think. My stomach is in knots over this... I shouldn't let it get to me so much, but... yeah... ETA: Plus the readers... they search for litrpg...
Honestly, maybe LitRPG authors should do what that lady did for the romance novels and the sleazy agent? Do a fundraiser, hire a decent lawyer, and fight the whole mess.
@Blaise would be very helpful in that regard... does he use LitRPG on his marketing at all? I mean... could he stop us from using it as a keyword even?
Not sure, but he's basically prevented amazon from having a "LitRPG" section, if the trademark ever holds up... way to shoot yourself in the foot...
It says on the site "Providing a website featuring entertainment information in the fields of movies, television, literature, and social media; Publishing of books, e-books, audio books, music and illustrations". So maybe? It would probably stop anyone saying "A LitRPG series" legally...or at least without his permission.
You know what? f**k it. I'm standing my ground. I can lawyer down, and I'm happy to sink some cash to protect LitRPG if need be.
"The number 1 reason I filed was so that no one would ever grab the LitRPG name and force me and other authors to not write in the genre. I had and have NO intention of doing that to others. One, it would just be a seriously dick move. And two, IT WOULDN'T WORK! lol" -- Aleron Kong
Nah... this is the part that smells of shit... The second reason I did it is that I'm a business man. I see the potential in LitRPG, and if ever a movie is made, I'd like to be a voice in that room. So what he thinks is that someone is going to make a movie about a book about a game... get real... also... I had and have NO intention of doing that to others. And that's written proof that he has no intent to use, making his trademark application fraudulent...
I would assume the trademark relevant to LitRPG would also incorporate @Paul Bellow and also my site ultimateLitRPG.com Frankly, I'm not going to sit by and do nothing if he intends to seek a profit from anyone and everyone using the term.
DMCAs do not apply to trademarks... only cease and desists... my non-legal advice to that would be to tell him and his lawyer to go pound sand and then see what they do about it... there's no way he could actually get a favorable resolution out of that situation... either he loses the trademark for challenging and failing to enforce, or he loses his cult following...
This reminds me of when a channel on youtube tried to trade mark the word "react" and the entire community shot them down. This is the same guy that wrote the chaos seed series correct? How big of an ego does he have! Also why is the community not retaliating? That's like Anna rice saying she'll trademark the word romance! Also wouldn't that just hurt his own sales? I mean from what I'm reading amazon will have to remove that category for any American books leaving only the ones that don't fall under American law like Russian and Japanese books... all doing better then his own. Not sure if he can do anything about other countries using that term. If so then he probably found a new cash revenue since his books suck.