Epic Games is no stranger to legal battles, especially as of late. Currently, they're in the midst of a drawn-out fight against Apple, but now they're beginning another court case against another company: Nreal. We've covered Nreal's various products in the past, which range from mixed reality headsets, to smart glasses; the company is one that dabbles in virtual and augmented reality technology, not typically gaming, but that hasn't stopped them from catching Epic Games' attention. Epic posits that Nreal both looks and sounds too similar to their own Unreal Engine, to the point that they're suing Nreal over "willfully trading off Epic’s rights, causing confusion, and acting with callous disregard for Epic’s prior rights", and making a profit by "confusing consumers" with the name.

The lawsuit, which was filed last week, aims to prevent Nreal from obtaining a trademark in the United States. It also appears to be seeking compensation from Nreal for multiple forms of damages and the reimbursement of Epic's legal costs. According to the legal papers, this has been an ongoing issue for years; Nreal attempted to obtain a trademark for its name in 2018, to which Epic Games opposed their application. With the American launch of Nreal's products quickly approaching according to a recent teaser made on the company's Twitter, and reportedly no attempt from them to discuss the problem outside of court, Epic has decided to move forward with the lawsuit.

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[Deleted member 397813]

thanks for the news, babylon bee.
wait... this is real-
WHYYYYYYYY?

 

[Kioku]

The thing is, if Epic chose not to sue, a claim could be made they weren't protecting their "Unreal" trademark, and they could lose it altogether. Unreal is a common word and pretty hard to justify owning a trademark on it, so they have to defend it all the more aggressively. They have to sue other companies in the same line of business whose trademarks sound anywhere close to "unreal", and even outside it. Remember when Apple sued all those grocery stores? Yeah. It wasn't because organic apples were a competition to their phones.

Trademark law states that a trademark can't be granted if it "so resembles another registered trademark, or a mark or trade name previously used by another and not abandoned, as to be likely to cause confusion when applied to the applicant's goods or services" and Epic (yet another dubious trademark) not countering the trademark application could be argued to be a case of abandoning their own trademark. Unreal/Nreal sound similar enough to where they have to do this.

This is all standard legal procedure.

Standard legal procedure if the "Unreal" trademark was in danger. It's not. Granted, the legal system is a giant mess. So, I wouldn't be surprised if they can throw a fit about the letter U and win.

 

[MaxToTheMax]

Can't wait for them to sue Disney

epic was a Fox movie but yeh.

 

[Veho]

Standard legal procedure if the "Unreal" trademark was in danger. It's not.

It would be if they failed to protect it. And letting all sorts of newcomers in an intersecting business field use similar trademarks is the textbook definition of failing to protect it.

 

[banjo2]

epic was a Fox movie but yeh.

I mean, it's Disney's now, isn't it?

 

[DKB]

Pathetic.

 

[MaxToTheMax]

I mean, it's Disney's now, isn't it?

Oh yeah lol. You’re right. I forgot about that. Sorry!

 

[SkittleDash]

Man the lawsuits lately are getting pretty unreal.

 

[SDA]

Without doubt, this is the strangest lawsuit I've ever seen in my life. I mean, what's the bad thing in the word "unreal"? Probably that company was trying to get a link with the irreality.

 

[Maq47]

The next thing you know, something with the word Epic is going to be sued.

I'm surprised nobody has sued Epic Action LLC yet...

 

[templeofhylia]

this inspires me to start my own streaming platform for hockey called e-puck games and to sue these guys for sounding too similar

not really but damn if this isn't ridiculous

 

[Uiaad]

This is almost as bad as Tim Langdell owning the word "Edge" and suing indiscriminately anyone who dared use it ... this was until EA took him down a peg or two when he targeted Mirror's Edge. This is of course the reason why Soul Edge was renamed Soul Blade over here in the west

 

[Kioku]

It would be if they failed to protect it. And letting all sorts of newcomers in an intersecting business field use similar trademarks is the textbook definition of failing to protect it.

Again... With how convoluted the legal system is, I wouldn't be surprised if they won this literally over the letter U...

 

[Veho]

This is almost as bad as Tim Langdell owning the word "Edge" and suing indiscriminately anyone who dared use it ... this was until EA took him down a peg or two when he targeted Mirror's Edge. This is of course the reason why Soul Edge was renamed Soul Blade over here in the west

Remember when Mojang tried to trademark the word "scrolls"?

 

[hamohamo]

if it was also a game engine then yea they have a right to do so but this absolutely absurd and they're losing this one for sure. like bro, yall didnt create the word unreal anyway. you can't trademark a fucking word like that.

 

[Uiaad]

Remember when Mojang tried to trademark the word "scrolls"?

Who could forget really its all a load of money wasting bollocks. Still think it should have been decided the way Notch suggested ... a Quake match

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Well, they're not wrong, it does sound similar, but cmon, it's a dictionary word. The thing with trademark law is that if you don't take action to "protect" it you risk losing the trademark altogether. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure you can't trademark a word; the trademark includes specifics like the logo, the type of business and so on. Nreal don't seem to be in the same market nor does their logo look similar at all so it's hard to argue that it could cause any confusion or that they are intentionally copying (un)Epic. I don't think Epic are going to win this one, but I'm no lawyer.

 

[Uiaad]

Well, they're not wrong. The thing with trademark law is that if you don't take action to "protect" it you risk losing the trademark altogether. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure you can't trademark a word; the trademark includes specifics like the logo, the type of business and so on. Nreal don't seem to be in the same market nor does their logo look similar at all so it's hard to argue that it could cause any confusion. I don't think they're going to win this one, but I'm no lawyer.

Any judge worth his salt would throw it out in a heartbeat as you say they are in two different markets. I really don't see any "confusion" over branding at all

 

[Deleted member 514389]

Not very epic.
(As always....)

 

[godreborn]

eBay is now suing this bar I took @JuanMena to called eGay. he was wondering where all the women were, and I said, "they're all in the bathroom."