Betheda has sent a cease and desist letter to MineCraft creators, demanding that they stop using the name "Scrolls" for their upcoming name, on ground that it infringes on their "The Elder Scrolls" trademark.
"First of all, I love Bethesda. I assume this nonsense is partly just their lawyers being lawyers, and a result of trademark law being the way it is," MineCraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson wrote on his blog.
"… Out of the blue, we got contacted by Bethesda's lawyers," he continued. "They wanted to know more about the "Scrolls" trademark we were applying for, and claimed it conflicted with their existing trademark 'The Elder Scrolls'."
"I agree that the word "Scrolls" is part of that trademark, but as a gamer, I have never ever considered that series of (very good) role playing games to be about scrolls in any way, nor was that ever the focal point of neither their marketing nor the public image."
"The implication that you could own the right to all individual words within a trademark is also a bit scary. We looked things up and realized they didn't have much of a case, but we still took it seriously. Nothing about Scrolls is meant to in any way derive from or allude to their games."
"We suggested a compromise where we'd agree to never put any words in front of 'Scrolls', and instead call sequels and other things something along the lines of 'Scrolls - The Banana Expansion'. I am not sure if they ever got back to us with a reply to this."
The 15 pages cease and desist letter demanded monetary compensation under the threat of bringing the case to court.