The Word of Notch has word from the creator of Minecraft (which people dig so much it just enjoyed its three millionth sale) that in spite of his optimism when he was contacted by Bethesda's lawyers, Mojang is now being sued by Bethesda over their plans to title their upcoming game Scrolls based on the belief it infringes on The Elder Scrolls. Expressing his ongoing love for Bethesda and his continuing suspicion this "nonsense is partly just their lawyers being lawyers," he discusses his views on the situation, and here's a bit:

The implication that you could own the right to all individual words within a trademark is also a bit scary. We looked things up and realized they didn’t have much of a case, but we still took it seriously. Nothing about Scrolls is meant to in any way derive from or allude to their games. We suggested a compromise where we’d agree to never put any words in front of “Scrolls”, and instead call sequels and other things something along the lines of “Scrolls - The Banana Expansion”. I’m not sure if they ever got back to us with a reply to this.

Today, I got a 15 page letter from some Swedish lawyer firm, saying they demand us to stop using the name Scrolls, that they will sue us (and have already paid the fee to the Swedish court), and that they demand a pile of money up front before the legal process has even started.

I assume this is all some more or less automated response to us applying for the trademark. I sincerely hope Bethesda isn’t pulling a Tim Langdell.