Don’t hold your breath: The Pokémon Company’s former chief legal officer Don McGowan (who spent nearly 12 years there, as well as multi-year stints at Bungie and Microsoft) thinks there’s no way that his former company would sue.
”Even if I was still at the company I wouldn’t touch this, and I’m the most trigger-happy CLO [Chief Legal Officer] I’ve ever met. This will blow over in a couple of days and they’ll be happy to let it,” he told IGN.
Why? One reason is that like some other executives Trump has previously and corruptly leveraged, some of The Pokémon Company’s leaders personally depend on the US’s good graces: “Many of their execs in the USA are on green cards,” he said. Another reason, he says, is that The Pokémon Company doesn’t want the press.
The Pokemon’s only real asset at this point is their brand value. Being appropriated by an unpopular or controversial third party is a textbook example of why a company would want to use trademark law to protect their brand identity.
Having said that, I agree that the brand damage here is likely minimal; and certainly far less than the damage that getting into a legal fight with DHS would be.
Another reason is that a fashist authoritarian hypercapitalist reign of terror is dangerous and it’s best to keep his head down and obey because it’s not his head on the chopping block yet
As The Verge points out in their article, Nintendo will most likely not to anything about it. But I sure would love to see them try.
The relevant part of the article:
Cowards
“Nintendo rolls over like a dog”
Nintendogs*
Yeah because the Pokémon company is only really into making bad cash grab games. They wouldn’t touch this at all.
The Pokemon’s only real asset at this point is their brand value. Being appropriated by an unpopular or controversial third party is a textbook example of why a company would want to use trademark law to protect their brand identity.
Having said that, I agree that the brand damage here is likely minimal; and certainly far less than the damage that getting into a legal fight with DHS would be.
Another reason is that a fashist authoritarian hypercapitalist reign of terror is dangerous and it’s best to keep his head down and obey because it’s not his head on the chopping block yet