Langdell war "not over yet" - Mobigame

EA's recent victory against trademark hound Tim Langdell was "extremely good news" for the developer of iPhone puzzle game EDGE, but the war "it is not over yet".

It's a long way down for Langdell and this is "just the beginning", Mobigame CEO David Papazian told Eurogamer.

"This is an extremely good news of course!" Papazian said. "It is the first time a court recognised Tim Langdell was (and I quote the ruling) 'trolling various gaming-related licensing opportunities' and found 'compelling evidence that the asserted marks were fraudulently registered and / or have been abandoned'".

"But it is not over yet. Now we will continue to support EA in the battle against Tim Langdell. The next step is to have all his trademarks cancelled by the USPTO.

"After that he will not be able to damage anyone," he declared.

"It is just the beginning, Tim Langdell did not harass only EA or us, but many other companies. I bet that more good news will follow soon."

Papazian was targeted by Langdell for using the word edge as the title of his iPhone game. Papazian refused to back down and the case hit a legal stalemate - interspersed with barbed, publicised to-and-fros. Eventually, Langdell picked on EA and Mirror's Edge. That may have been one step too far, as EA's lawyers turned the tables and sought the removal of all Langdell's voraciously guarded trademarks.

That recent denial by a US court to grant Langdell's injunction against EA seems to suggest that a legal snowball is tumbling towards him.

Papazian attributed a portion of what seems to be Langdell's unhappy ending to "the people at Chaos Edge" who unearthed new evidence and did "a great job" bringing it to light. "As EA said, it is a victory for all indies, and also for all journalists and developers who helped during this procedure," Papazian pledged, noting the efforts of The Chaos Engine developer forum in particular.

He went on: "We are still thinking to start a legal action against Langdell to claim a reparation for the prejudice, but we also have other priorities and we prefer to look forward.

"We have a big game to announce really soon and we are going to release EDGE for the Sony PSP (Minis) and for the Apple iPad.

"This news will reassure our partners that we were right from the start."

Unlike Tim Langdell, who told Eurogamer in March he was "completely certain" of beating EA in court.

EDGE is on sale on the App store now. We reviewed the game in January 2009 before this whole juicy saga began. Mobigame has also made Truckers Delight and Cross Fingers for iPhone.

Simon Parkin investigated the Tim Langdell story for Eurogamer in August 2009.