STAR MARK — Life of a Trademark

This game needs JavaScript — and it runs entirely in your browser, with no tracking.

Prefer reading? Everything it teaches is in our guides. Start with responding to an opposition, proof of use and clearance searches — or try the trademark quiz.

Keyboard: ← → move · space fire · number keys answer. Touch: drag to move, tap to fire. No tracking, no data collected — the game runs entirely in your browser (your best score is stored on your device only). For information only; not legal advice.

What this game teaches (and what it simplifies)

Every game-over screen states a real rule of French / EU trademark law, sourced from our guides. The gameplay around those rules is simplified — deliberately:

The “one in two” chance of a prior-right strike when you skip the clearance search is a game device, not a statistic.
One game second is roughly two months. Real disputes take months or years, and are prepared — not dodged.
Revocation for non-use is never automatic: a third party must request it. The game's Year-5 checkpoint stages that request.
“Generic” and “loss of distinctiveness” are one and the same ground of revocation — the mark becomes the usual name of the product through the owner's inactivity.
Oppositions, in real life, land within a couple of months of the application's publication — at the very start of a mark's life — and the five-year non-use clock runs from registration, not filing. We spread these attacks across the decade so the game stays playable.
The trial verdict odds are a dramatic device, not success rates. We publish no success rates — lawyers' ethics rules (rightly) frown on that. And no, in real life counsel cannot take losing off the table the way the game's badge does — a good lawyer manages the risk, from validity to proof of use to chain of title, but never eliminates it.
Reputation is not earned by collecting ten tokens: it is assessed through public awareness, market share and intensity of use. The full-width “8(5)” blaster is our tribute to Article 8(5) EUTMR, which protects reputed marks beyond their registered goods in oppositions — its enforcement twins, Article 9(2)(c) EUTMR and Article L.713-3 of the French IP Code, are what actually stop infringers in the marketplace.
IP agents (conseils en propriété industrielle) do excellent work before the trademark offices (INPI, EUIPO); they simply cannot plead in court — only attorneys can. In the game an IP agent's SUE button stays grayed out, and if a repeat infringer sues first, a summons ends the run — because being a defendant is not a choice, and there is no attorney aboard to defend it.
The budget and every amount shown are illustrative and carry no currency — this is not a fee schedule. A clearance search, a demand letter, a settlement or a trial each has a real cost; we made the relative weights felt, not the figures accurate.
Yes, in this game the big firm is just slower and pricier. We are a small firm. We regret nothing.
Mediation ends the game's proceedings because, in real life, an agreement reached before the decision means the case never reaches a ruling — the dispute closes on the parties' terms instead. That is why it can rescue almost any defeat, but not a missed renewal: there is no adversary to settle with.
The “Lost in translation” fog is a wink at the value of bilingual counsel across a French / EU procedure — not a claim that anyone is at fault for a language.
Yes, we cleared STAR MARK before naming the game.
No, retaining us does not make you invincible. But it helps.

Prefer reading to dodging meteors? Try the European trademark quiz, the fee calculator, or go straight to the guide behind the opposition panel.