Tim Langdell Loses In Future “Edge” Trial

Not a lot has been heard from trademark champion Tim Langdell in a while. The lawyer-happy supreme owner of the word “edge” was the palm-faced talk of the town in 2009 and 2010 (never better covered than by the excellent Chaos Edge), but his antics have been a little more quiet of late. This is likely to do with his not doing particularly well in his increasingly ludicrous attempts to claim ownership of a noun. And in the latest ruling, from Future Publishing’s case against Edge Interactive Media Inc., Edge Games Inc, and Dr Timothy Langdell, it’s observed that the nontrepreneur’s evidence was “absurd”, and he had even gone so far as to invent people to sign his witness statements. And so much more besides. Read on for an extensive breakdown of the judge’s conclusions. It’s a remarkable tale.

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The disc was too delicate to be shipped to the UK, said Dr Tim. Despite it already having been sent across the Atlantic twice. The court ordered him to send it over. And thus Langdell sent the disc to an expert, Mr Steggles of Disklabs, who verified that the disc was indeed from 1991, and said that in his opinion it was “genuinely created at that time.” Surely Langdell was finally onto a winner? Except, well, Future’s expert, Mr Dearsley of Kroll Computers, pointed something out. The content had been created by Windows 95.

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Count Dookkake said:

Such shaming's gotta put a guy on, uh, edge.

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Adam Blade said:

This is pretty tame/lame, even by your standards.

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Count Dookkake said:

You are very perceptive. I can see there's no fooling you.

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rockpapershotgun.com said:

The good doctor seemed to take as many nonsensical approaches to defending his use of the EDGE logo as possible, also arguing that because he “copied” it on a letterhead to Future, that this was an “estoppel representation“, which even the judge can’t seem to be bothered to fathom. And then, despite having admitted to copying it, and claiming to have been given permission to use it, he brilliantly asserts that he also invented it in 1991! Future, it seemed, “consciously or unconsciously” copied it two years later when they launched the magazine. This was somewhat scuppered when Future produced the original designer of the logo, and Langdell had nothing useful to say to defend against that. This is also not particularly helped by the real “Edge” logo he was using in 1990, which in fact looks like this. Or this.

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rockpapershotgun.com said:

However, Langdell had produced some floppy discs which stored logo, as evidence that it pre-existed the magazine. He claimed that the logo had been published on a “single page catalogue” and a flysheet he used at trade shows, but when asked to show a physical copy said that there was, er, “scarcity of use” pre 1993. But those discs – he’d saved “catalogue” and flysheet onto 5.25″ disc in 1991. He was home free! But wow, it was about to get brilliant.

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rockpapershotgun.com said:

The disc was too delicate to be shipped to the UK, said Dr Tim. Despite it already having been sent across the Atlantic twice. The court ordered him to send it over. And thus Langdell sent the disc to an expert, Mr Steggles of Disklabs, who verified that the disc was indeed from 1991, and said that in his opinion it was “genuinely created at that time.” Surely Langdell was finally onto a winner? Except, well, Future’s expert, Mr Dearsley of Kroll Computers, pointed something out. The content had been created by Windows 95.

Click to expand...