During 2022 and 2023 there were numerous disasters engaged in by nuTSR, most of which are pending a final resolution – but the most spectacular and all reaching was the lawsuit of TSR LLC against Wizards of the Coast LLC. Many of these aspects were not easily understood by someone without a background in law or intellectual property.

Prelude

It can be safely assumed that once the intention to use the old TSR Inc trademarks became public, Wizards of the Coast would have instructed legal counsel to write polite, but firm, letters to TSR LLC advising them that they did not have the right to do so. The exact details provided etc are not available to the public, but it is an all but mandatory courtesy in these situations.

This seems to have worked to a certain degree, as the following trademarks were surrendered/abandoned without a fight:

• Diagonal TSR (Surrendered commenced 7 September 2021)
• The TSR Wizard (Surrendered commenced 7 September 2021)
• TSR Seal (Abandoned 28 July 2021)

But well… for the rest…. they decided to fight…

Round 1 – Trademark Office

What/why?

Eventually, around December 2021, Wizards of the Coast filed a motion to cancel the outstanding trademarks with the Trademark Office – essentially asking them to agree that they were not valid and hence should be removed from the register. While Wizards of the Coast’s application alluded to fraud, the request did not include any sort of request for damages, punishment, etc.

Wizards of the Coast chose the option which would be firm and decisive, but also would not come across as heavy handed or attempting to unfairly litigate smaller parties. By seeking to cancel the trademarks, they sought to eliminate the use of them in the market without any undue attention or expense for either party.

Outcome

Wizards of the Coast win by default due to later plot twists.

nuTSR: 0
Wizards of the Coast: 1

Round 2 – Wrong court

What/why?

In response to the trademark filing, Justin initially lodged a claim for a declaratory judgement in the .. Circuit Court in North Carolina.¹TSR LLC v. Wizards of the Coast LLC (7:21-cv-00210) District Court, E.D. North Carolina (Court Listener) This is essentially a legal option available in US Trademark law that allows a party to jump straight to asking the Federal Court to make a decision rather than appeal a cancellation.

The problem is, under US jurisdictional rules, since Wizards of the Coast was the defendant, was headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and had no relevant business interests or presence in North Carolina – the .. Circuit was the wrong court and subsequently was not going to make any ruling on the matter.

Now, in fairness it should be noted that jurisdiction is a complicated subject in US law… but this wasn’t that hard and also, certainly didn’t get them off on the right foot to start.

Outcome

Justin retracted his filing in North Carolina, and started looking for a lawyer in Washington who would work with his North Carolina lawyer – a humiliating false start and default victory to Wizards of the Coast.

nuTSR: 0
Wizards of the Coast: 2

Round 3 – Fundraising

What/why?

Around the same time, Justin started an IndieGogo to raise funds for his war chest, this included the baffling promise that they would make Wizards of the Coast remove a disclaimer that appears on many legacy TSR Inc products. The goal was set at a $50,000 US, which to date represents roughly 17% of the expenses according to later sources.

Outcome

The IndieGoGo raised $5,715 gross, which ends up being roughly % of the expenses in the TSR LLC Bankruptcy. Justin also attracted ridicule for both his insistence that the handful of people who donated were the “TSR ARMY”.

And later, his weird claim that the trademark action was cancelled because he saw the word “cancellation” on the memo referring to the pending trademark cancellation action.

Another humiliating, self-inflicted loss to Justin.

nuTSR: 0
Wizards of the Coast: 3

Round 4 – Suit and Counter-Suit

What/why the lawsuit?

As mentioned, this was a declaratory judgement suit – what that means is Justin was asking the court to make a legal decision over whether the circumstances meant had a sound and valid claim to the trademarks.²TSR LLC v. Wizards of the Coast LLC (2:21-cv-01705) District Court, W.D. Washington (CourtListener) If he won, the action at the trademark office, which had been put on hold, would be dismissed and Wizards of the Coast would either have to accept it, or look like sore losers by going to the Federal Court of Appeal.

What/why the counter-suit?

Having been freed from the shackles of risk to their public perception, and dragged against their will to Federal Court where EVERYTHING was on the table, Wizards of the Coast launched a counter-suit for basically costs and every penny that was ever made through the use of the trademarks – as well as the right to seek payment from and personally audit not just TSR LLC but the newly formed Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum LLC and Justin LaNasa himself.

An important thing to understand here is because Justin effectively moved this from the Trademark Office to a federal court is that, this is no longer limited to issues of trademark – it’s federal court, EVERYTHING is on the table. Now Justin is playing to keep his ill gotten trademarks, and Wizards of the Coast is going for the jugular.

Outcome

Three humiliating self-inflicted losses to Justin. Arguably moreso due to later developments.

nuTSR: 0
Wizards of the Coast: 4

Round 5 – Injunction

What/why?

At this point, nuTSR was still playing the game where they were claiming that were releasing Star Frontiers any day now… any minute… sure it’d missed the promised release date, there had been the fiasco about the mock up covers being claimed to be real, and primary creator Dave Johnson had been caught lying about it having an ISBN…. but it was coming, honest guys.

Then there was a video leaking that the intended content included outright Nazi shit, and the inclusion of a straight up racist “Negro” race… and a release of Alarms & Journeys confirmed that Dave intended it to be a text that advocated racial purity and eugenics.

Unsurprisingly Wizards of the Coast filed for an injunction to prevent any commercial release of this that would harm their brand by way of becoming associated with this kind of deplorable politics. When Justin tried his “gotcha” response of providing what he claimed was the “real” beta test draft… Wizards of the Coast pointed out that it too, was full of deplorable shit.

Outcome

Justin folded and avoided the injunction by agreeing to all the terms of it without an injunction, stating that Star Frontiers would not be released until after the the court case was concluded – which would later mean never… and there was much rejoicing. Wizards of the Coast also picked up some pointers they could use for the rest of the trial so.

A cowardly concession by Justin, but progress in that it wasn’t entirely self-inflicted… kind of.

nuTSR: 0
Wizards of the Coast: 5

Round 6 – Protection Order

What/why?

This may come as shock to you, but some people are not nice and Justin is one of those people. When Wizards of the Coast made it clear they intended to rely upon Don Semora of Wizard Tower Games as a witness, suddenly he started getting a bunch of anonymous harassment and also just… like straight up harassment directly from Justin via the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum’s Facebook page etc. There’s even a weird parody character of him in Those Pesky Goblinz.

Understandably, Wizards of the Coast felt this was bad and put forward a proposed Protection Order… and because the alterative was to announce that he felt harassment was good actually… Justin agreed to it. The order expressly prohibits the parties or agents they control from harassing key people or witnesses, etc.

Outcome

This would be an epic win for Wizards of the Coast both in the short term, but also play out in the long term. It also had no downside for them as they had no need to intimidate or harass witnesses.

nuTSR: 0
Wizards of the Coast: 6

Round 7 – Extension

What/why?

This was pretty ordinary, it’s very common in legal action that parties are unable to keep to the schedule that the judge initially sets and hence need to request an extension of time due to discovery – ie too much shit to sort through and haggling over what shit each side needs to provide each other.

Unsurprisingly, given that Justin’s case was a mess from the start and his tendency to claim things aren’t his doing no matter how many of his fingerprints are on it – they ended up moving for an extension – moving the trial date from October to… well that doesn’t matter.

Outcome

If Wizards of the Coast had started this mess, it would be an unfair victory for them – they can afford to litigate this until Judgement Day, Justin cannot. However, since nuTSR started this shit by escalating a simple trademark dispute into Federal Court so… yet another self-inflicted defeat.

nuTSR: 0
Wizards of the Coast: 7

Round 8 – Bankruptcy

What/why?

On 8 June 2023, TSR LLC… former backbone of nuTSR,³TSR, LLC (23-01577) United States Bankruptcy Court, E.D. North Carolina (Court Listener) and the party which brought the legal action in court, declared bankruptcy – essentially declaring that the company had no money, no valuable assets and a whole bunch of debts to… Justin LaNasa and his tattoo shop – initially being the biggest creditor.

For those not familiar, the process of bankruptcy for a company in the US is to essentially to get a lawyer to prepare a motion for you to take to a specialist court, who will appoint a highly qualified lawyer as the trustee of your company and decide what is to be done. It is far from a Get Out of Jail Free card, and in the case of prior wrongdoing incurs significant civil and criminal risk.

Outcome

With the only party bringing the trademark dispute action in bankruptcy while declaring no funds and no assets available to pay for anything – Wizards of the Coast are pretty much guaranteed a flawless victory on the initial court action against them. Notably the Star Frontiers trademark lapsed in July, meaning there would be nothing to fight over.⁴STAR FRONTIERS, # 90276506, (US Trademark Office)

And yes, that means that Justin essentially voluntarily tapped out and failed to make any progress on the goals that he specifically did the fundraising for in Round 3 – effectively illustrating he is not a man who follows through on his promises. He handed the victory to Wizards of the Coast on a silver platter.

nuTSR: 0
Wizards of the Coast: 8

This however, only put a pause (technical term is “stay”) on Wizards of the Coast continuing the counter-suit against Justin’s other companies and himself. In the fight that Justin had started, he had essentially just tied one hand behind his back… and the stay effectively gives more time for Justin and his associates to incriminate themselves.

Because oh yeah, Motions and Discovery never closed…. there was that extension in the last round! So the say means that it’ll be trivial for Wizards of the Coast to adjust their strategy, submissions and evidence presented based on what happens in the interim.

nuTSR: -1
Wizards of the Coast: 8

On top of that, as TSR LLC had been the party to bring the action that they were destined to lose against Wizards of the Coast.. they now could claim all their legal costs to date in the bankruptcy – thus making them an interested party who had the right to be involved, ask questions of the trustee, etc and the single biggest creditor and bringing the total amount owed to about $1.3 million.

The bankruptcy trustee has obtain a special counsel for the bankruptcy, likely due to the weird discrepancies in what assets are declared, products mysteriously shifting ownership, etc, and seems pretty determined to recover as much a possible… so effectively nuTSR is saving Wizards of the Coasts on seeking remedies to recovery costs… since all the funds for the bankruptcy actions come from the proceedings and all Wizards of the Coast had to do was file.

nuTSR: -2
Wizards of the Coast: 8

Also anything that was revealed to be wrong-doing by Justin that surfaced in the bankruptcy would become a matter of fact that can, and would be used against him. Furthermore, anything he claimed in the bankruptcy – which was later disadvantageous to him in the countersuit could also be argued to be a fact under the legal doctrine of estoppel (“no takebacks” in lawyer speak).

All the while, Wizards of the Coast need only watch on while a lawyer that is (essentially) being paid for by Justin interrogates him and exposes irregularities, issues and potential dishonesty in his business dealings.

nuTSR: -3
Wizards of the Coast: 8

And well, this isn’t really part of the fight but it also included the hilarious humiliation that the filings showed that in three years of operating, TSR LLC never made even $30,000 in revenue. Remember, revenue is just gross money coming – before deducting taxes, expenses, etc.

Round 9 – Protective Order breach

What/why?

Now, most people who were trailing by eleven points, after eight rounds, would sit back quietly and try to stay away from any more trouble – but Justin didn’t get to be the face of nuTSR by being the sort of guy who listens to Jiminy Cricket… or common sense. His response was predictable:

A new slew of weird harassment campaigns commenced against Don Semora… who it should be mentioned was almost certainly going to be an important witness in the counter-suit.

There were multiple events, many of which Wizards of the Coast would supply information on in their submission but perhaps the most blatant was the time when Justin contacted a venue under his own name to try to get them to cancel the booking, then mysterious further anonymous emails started appearing afterwards.

It almost seemed like he’d assumed the stay on proceedings meant that there would be no consequences for violating the protective order he’d agreed to. Wizards of the Coast disagreed, applied for a very specific order from the bankruptcy judge to allow them to move for sanctions – and promptly moved for a $10,000 fine.

Justin lodged a defence which can be summed up as “They can’t prove I did it, I know I agreed not to do it but I think if I did do it then it’s Free Speech, and that Don (who didn’t agree to be bound by it) should be punished for saying mean things about me (because Free Speech doesn’t apply to him?).”

Outcome

The judge declined to sanction nuTSR, at this time, but agreed that there were definitely shenanigans, and encouraged those who are witnesses (Don) not to publicly comment on the trial/plaintiff etc as it could impact credibility. The judge also expressed an interest in further exploring aspects of The Protective Order breach and that they never wanted to see nuTSR try that nonsense in their response ever again.

Another humiliating victory to Wizards of the Coast, handed to them on a silver platter by nuTSR… which could still lead to more problems and sanctions for Justin LaNasa.

nuTSR: -3
Wizards of the Coast: 9

Conclusion

By entering into bankruptcy, TSR LLC has essentially forfeited the original lawsuit and now Justin LaNasa is still on the hook for the counter-suit… and has tainted his own defence by being found to have violated a protective order that he agreed to… then tried to weasel out of it.

Ultimately the main thing he’s succeeded in, beyond self humiliation and burning giant piles of cash, is extended the duration and the risk for him in the proceedings since it started with a small hearing over cancelling a trademark are now on hold with the only potential action being enforcement of a protection order which could result in sanctions or even contempt charges.

• 1
  TSR LLC v. Wizards of the Coast LLC (7:21-cv-00210) District Court, E.D. North Carolina (Court Listener
• 2
  TSR LLC v. Wizards of the Coast LLC (2:21-cv-01705) District Court, W.D. Washington (CourtListener
• 3
  TSR, LLC (23-01577) United States Bankruptcy Court, E.D. North Carolina (Court Listener)
• 4
  STAR FRONTIERS, # 90276506, (US Trademark Office)