If you call any other flower a rose, is it a rose? In the latest legal twist, according to Ausir and his grab-bag of documents from the ongoing court shenanigans, Bethesda are saying that Interplay "never had the rights to use any elements of the Fallout universe and Fallout games aside from the title Fallout itself":
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<p style="padding-left: 30px;">The breach of contract claims asserted by Interplay (...) fail because Bethesda is not obligated or under any legal duty to allow Interplay to utilize the panoply of Fallout assets in connection with an MMOG. Interplay transferred its right, title and interest in and to all Fallout Intellectual Property to Bethesda for $5.75 million. This included, among other rights and properties, all characters, story lines, weapons, art and other game related assets as well as the copyright and trademark registrations that protect same. (...) In the APA, Interplay further represented and warranted that any and all Fallout game assets that it owned were being transferred to Bethesda.
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<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Interplay’s use of Bethesda’s Fallout intellectual property such as characters, weapons, and story lines was not a “benefit of its bargain” as Interplay claims. The only bargain Interplay made for a MMOG was the conditional right to use the FALLOUT trademark.
 
Bethesda are also insisting Interplay release the contents of their internal Fallout Online design wiki as court evidence, even though Interplay has offered Bethesda opportunities to inspect it. Basically Bethesda made a whole fuck-tonne of money out of Fallout 3 and they're going all out to stop Interplay from milking that cow too.
 
In related news, Interplay is "running at an operating loss of $205,000 over the 3 months ending 30 September 2010". This news item is now about which side we should barrack for. Interplay vs Bethesda, which is better for Fallout and why?