Pwned.Com Responds to Pwnage Trademark Filing

Oh the Pwnage drama just won't stop.

Last weekend we reported that Futuremark Games had filed a trademark for Pwnage, later that week Jukka Mäkinen, Executive Producer, Futuremark Games Studio, responded claiming that they only filed the trademark because they wanted to "protect ourselves from squatters."

MTV, quick to poke fun, tracked down one of the folks who work at Pwned.Com to see what they think about the whole legal silliness.

"PWNED.com is a site for gamers pure and simple. We never felt the need to trademark the word we never created. We do this for fun. We are looking into our options because of this."

Yes, that's right, we need someone to trademark Pwned too.

'Pwned.com' Weighs In On 'Pwnage' Trademark Attempt [MTV Multiplayer]

In what can only be described as the lamest excuse ever, Jukka Mäkinen, Executive Producer, Futuremark Games Studio, has responded to the ire raised when word floated to the surface that his company had decided to file a trademark for "Pwnage."

The Finnish software company had initially filed papers on the prevalent word on Feb. 26 to protect the word in relation to:

"... computer game software; computer game programs; computer game discs; interactive multimedia computer game program; downloadable ring tones, ... multimedia software recorded on CD-ROM featuring fictional characters and computer games; pre-recorded DVD's, video tapes, laser discs featuring movies about fictional characters, and pre-recorded compact discs featuring music; motion picture films on fictional characters...".

But they did it, Mäkinen says, to protect their company, not make money:

In the latest salvo in the let's-claim-credit-for-a-commonly-used-term-that-we-didn't-even-create War(TM), Finnish software company Futuremark Games Studio filed papers on February 26, 2008 to protect the trademark "Pwnage" in relation to:

"... computer game software; computer game programs; computer game discs; interactive multimedia computer game program; downloadable ring tones, ... multimedia software recorded on CD-ROM featuring fictional characters and computer games; pre-recorded DVD's, video tapes, laser discs featuring movies about fictional characters, and pre-recorded compact discs featuring music; motion picture films on fictional characters...".

Wow... at least they aren't attempting to apply it to every piece of media published or anything like that.

As predicted, we lost the first ever Kotaku versus Gizmodo Halo 3 challenge last night, 4 to 2.

While the games were close, we should have had a clear, spotless victory since Kotaku alum and Bungie superstar Luke Smith was on our team. I blame, besides our general suckatude, the fact that we never played as a team prior to last night while Giz made the right decision to train as a unit nightly leading up to the event.

Hit the jump for the full report.

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