Opening Arguments for Marvel enterprises:

Ladies and gentleman of the court and the honorable judge Harriss, Marvel brings forth a complaint against the defendant, NCSoft, on the grounds of trademark and copyright infringement. Not to mention, Marvel contends that NCSoft has entered the territory of distasteful business practices from the creation of the video game “City of Heroes.”
The defendants in this case have not created or retained rights of any “heroic” characters to this point. Therefore, it is assumed that the creation of any characters by consumers of the game are their own and are original; a new wave of superheroes. We, at Marvel, believe that consumers of the game are stripped of the ability to create truly original characters and are instead led by the “City of Heroes” interface to create the likenesses of Marvel characters. NCSoft has deliberately integrated Marvel characters into the interface of its game, preventing Marvel from licensing its intellectual property, the main source of revenue for Marvel, and is therefore receiving financial benefit from the infringing activities of its players, disqualifying NCSoft from the Safe Harbor provisions provided by the Digital Millennium Protection Act.
Characters are created in the game from a “Creation Engine.” Players develop customized heroes to defeat evil, but, in effect, what NCSoft has encouraged players to create are “Marvel-esque” likenesses that clearly resemble Marvel’s intellectual property.
Characters such as “Captain America” and “The Incredible Hulk,” are trademarked products created by Marvel. In “City of Heroes,” these characters are easily misconstrued to be Marvel’s original character designs. Not only are these infringing characters portrayed as Marvel characters, their names can be submitted without regulation or objection from NCSoft, another element that violates the trademark portion of copyright. Trademark law is designed to create a lucid marketplace, one where there’s no confusion as to identifying the products for goods and services. We, at Marvel, will clearly demonstrate throughout this trial the confusion that arises from NCSoft’s supposedly open-ended “Creation Engine,” which, for all intents and purposes, limits the user to creating characters trademarked by Marvel and other comic hero creators.
NCSoft will argue that their “Creation Engine” can produce endless possibilities for character creation, but this cannot be further from the truth. NCSoft will accuse us at Marvel that we are trying to prevent gamers from participating in an imaginative superhero-based universe. What Marvel states and will continue to impress on the court today is that this complaint concerns NCSoft capitalizing monetarily on Marvel’s trademarked intellectual property. What this complaint is not is an attempt to regulate the imaginations of Marvel’s many devoted fans.

A traffic accident in Alfred Station caused intermittent Internet and power outages Nov. 18 throughout Alfred.

The truck involved in the accident pulled out of Tinkertown Hardware and was traveling east on State Route 244 when the incident occurred. The loading boom on the back of the truck, which had not been properly secured, struck electric, phone and TV cables running above the roadway at 10 a.m., according to an Alfred Police Department press release.

Solar energy is aiding the world from New Jersey to Africa, AU Alumni and senior sales engineer for Morningstar Corporation Brad Berwald told the AU faculty and students on Oct. 31 at the Roon Lecture Hall.

Solar modules are benefiting a wide variety of people, Berwald said.

Berwald graduated from Alfred with a degree in electrical engineering and then completed a master’s degree in business administration. He was invited back to Alfred by the Environmental Studies Seminar series.

It is not everyday that a writer is fantastic at their craft, a talented orator and an overall fabulous person. Alfred University was graced on Nov. 20 with the presence of a poet who shines in all three of those categories: Jean Valentine.

The current Poet Laureate of New York State, Jean Valentine is, as Assistant Professor of English Juliana Gray puts it, “sublime.” With a voice that could melt butter, Valentine read to a captive audience selections from her most recent book “Little Boat, Lucy” (a chapbook that will be released in February 2009) and some of her unpublished work.