Lucas Films has a registration for THE DIG, a video game from 1995, used copies of whichI found for sale on eBay and on Vintagegaming.org.
DIGG is an archetypical ‘user content’ website – it is a news and information site listing stories from all over the web, based on voting by Digg members. Perhaps you’ve seen the DIGG THIS button below some blog posts to faciliate selection. I’ve previously discussed attempts to ‘game’ the DIGG system but that’s another story.
Lucas has now filed a Notice of Opposition (not a lawsuit as reported in some places), alleging that registration of DIGG for news services about, among other things, gaming, would be confusingly similar to THE DIG for a video game. Reaction in the blogosphere is pretty much what you’d expect.
Lucas’ Notice of Opposition is here. If you have a good theory as to what Lucas wins if it wins, tell me and I’ll post it. My totally speculative theory, unfettered by actual facts, is that Lucas is keeping its options open for adapting THE DIG into a different property, perhaps a movie, and will want to broaden its coverage. Steven Spielberg reportedly conceived this game and Orson Scott Card wrote the dialogue for it, so why not?
