The word meeple refers to a certain game piece in the tabletop community. A tiny, stylized, painted, wooden human-shaped figure. They can be used in worker placement games or even rolled in games like Rolling Heights. And a German publisher is going to trademark the term in the US.
The Meeple Trademark situation
For context, the reason for the meeple trademark is due to a crowdfunding campaign. According to a report by BoardGameWire, a Gamefound campaign called Meeple Inc. was successfully funded in March. It was developed by Cogito Ergo Meeple and successfully raised about $230,000.
However, the game and the publisher has undergone rebranding. The project is now called Tabletop Inc and studio's new title is Cotswold Games. This is because they were sent a letter on the behalf of Carcassonne publisher Hans Im Glueck requesting the project be removed.
This is because Hans Im Glueck owns the German and European trademarks for the word meeple across various use cases. including the classic meeple figure from the 2000 release of Carcassonne.
Tabletop Inc,'s designers, Joe and Maddie Adams, wrote a campaign update about the meeple trademark stating they were, "a little surprised as the term is used so frequently in the hobby."
“We thought Meeples belonged to all board gamers, it appears they don’t. We of course have zero interest in using anyone else’s IP so we think the best option is to do as they ask.
“Fortunately, whilst it creates a fair amount of work for us in the short term, this will not affect the game very much – all gameplay will remain exactly the same and the artwork will only be changed to replace the meeples with our new characters… Mumans.”
This situation has lead to similar reactions in the greater tabletop community. It is a widely used term in the hobby and this trademark hasn't been heavily enforced in the past. As such, a US trademark application for the word meeple has been sent by Board Games Insider podcast co-host Corey Thompson and GenCon Event Manager Marian McBride.
Thompson went on record saying he and McBride have no plans to make any profit from doing this. Stating, "“The side effect of this is that we intend to protect the US trademark from predatory action. We would really love for the wordmark to be usable by anyone.”
Overall, it's a forward-thinking legal move. Over the years, dozens of board games have been released featuring the word meeple. Which means if Hans Im Glueck were to become more aggressive with enforcing their trademark, it could mean a lot of messy legal action in the future.
