In particular, an infringement may also be present if the distribution of the product labelled in this way is unfair under competition law. The Federal Court of Justice held that Article 12 of the Community Trade Mark Regulation (CTMR) did not entitle companies to use foreign marks as their own trademarks. The designation of the software as “World of Warcraft Bot” and “WOW Bot” infringed Blizzard’s trademark rights. 3 U 86/13) and again on further appeal by the Federal Court of Justice (judgement of 12 January 2017 docket no. This view was confirmed on appeal in 2014 (Higher Regional Court of Hamburg, judgement of 6 November 2014 docket no. 5 U 168/11) that Bossland’s use of the trademarked name of the online game for the purpose of advertising their bots violated trademark law. Trademark InfringementĪlready in 2012, the Higher Regional Court of Hamburg had decided (judgement of 17 October 2012 docket no. Offering and selling bots held illegalĪnd Bossland did put up a fight, appealing and re-appealing a slew of court decisions that enjoined it from creating and operating its bots on various grounds ranging from unfair competition to copyright infringement. In an effort to combat the phenomenon of botting at its roots, the company took numerous actions directly against the developers of such automation software, in particular Bossland.
The company does not only block accounts of players who use bots. For other players, the “externally controlled” characters appear as foreign objects in online games, which after all thrive on social interaction.īlizzard, the operator of games such as World of Warcraft (WoW) and Diablo III, has been actively opposing the use of bots in its games for some time.
The machine-assisted avatar can therefore progress much faster in the game than human players. The character can complete tasks (“questing”) or collect virtual items (“gathering”) if the player is not at the computer. The bots in question automatically take control of the player’s character in various Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games. As in previous cases, Blizzard emerged victorious. A recent decision by the German Federal Constitutional Court not to grant an injunction on constitutional grounds in favour of bot creator Bossland is only the latest in a series of German court decisions in the protracted legal battle opposing Blizzard and Bossland GmbH, a company providing popular bots such as Honorbuddy, Lazymon, Buddywing, Hearthbuddy, and Demonbuddy.
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