So whats the issue then? Many other games and films/shows use alot of what their reasons are behind the whole thing. Tbh it just sounds like they saw Star Control was making money again under Stardock and they though yeah we can get in on this.

According to the contract, Accolade owned "Any trademarks" [Section 11.5 of the 1988 agreement]. No where is "Star Control" even specified. This is the basis for Stardock claiming they own the right to trademarks to terms such as "Ur-Quan Masters" and the race names. If they were used in marketing those games, and "Ur-Quan Masters" clearly was, Stardock may very well be within their rights. That may surprise some people, but it makes reasonable sense. It's not frivolous. They seem to have a legitimate claim.

How that works after 30 years and those terms not being registered earlier gets into legal issues too difficult to parse assuming there are even appropriate legal precedents to go by.

I was under the impression that the argument was that the company that sold said trademarks didn't have the right to sell the trademarks based on the agreement that Accolade had with the original developers.

I may be wrong about that though... there's been a lot of different stuff that's come out since this whole thing started and it's hard to follow if you're only vaguely paying attention.

Thats still way too legally for me to understand.

But I do get that 30 years or so can be a minefield of legal stuff, and appreachate you typing it all out.

Nope, that didn't apply to the trademarks. It applied to "licenses and sublicenses". Trademarks are never mentioned, just "works and derivative works" in that section. But it does mean that Stardock was most likely wrong in thinking they had an exclusive right to distribute, for example. That is just based on the 1988 agreement. How that applies to Atari's later distribution agreement with GoG, for example, is not as clear as I haven't read into that if it's even one of the documents available publicly.

As to Trademarks, it's pretty clear that "adopted Trademarks" are owned solely by the Publisher and survive termination. Names and phrases that were used in the promotion but not officially "adopted" are less clear. As I said, I think Stardock has a reasonable argument here. That doesn't mean that with Accolade not officially filing for them at the time might not present issues.

Gog shouldn't provoke Stardock by pulling a product Stardock has put on sale for no good reason. Paul and Fred didn't work on Star Control Origins so when they requested it be yanked Gog should have firmly told them "No."

They are probably a little gun shy because after Origins was released in a bundle with Star Control 1&2, Fred and Paul thought GoG and Steam were working against them and added both of them to the lawsuit last October for not bowing down fast enough to their demands. So now the lawsuit involves F&P, Stardock, GoG and Valve/Steam. Such nice guys...

There have been problems with the Star Control copyright that P&F are claiming in regards to the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Apparently what P&F want isn't protected by copyright according to the USPTO. While Brad might not be qualified to determine what is copyrightable I would assume the USPTO is qualified. There are hints of issues beyond that regarding their copyright might not be valid in the first place but that's an issue that will likely be brought up in court.

You don't really understand copyright, do you? Whether you agree with Fred and Paul or not, to say that they have no rights simply because they didn't work on it shows supreme ignorance on your part.

They gave up the copyright to the name Star Control decades ago. They have the rights to the races they created and the plot of the first two games, which is why their sequel to Star Control II is only using the material they own the rights to. Nothing belonging to them is used in Origins thus they have no claim to Origins or any right to request that sales cease

Trademarks and copyrights are different things, go brush up on your terminology then come back to discuss.

That's not how it is. Based on a neutral reading...
The IP is split just like a whole lot of other franchises.

F&P seem to own the code and the "design" for the first two games. In terms of copyright, that means any unique concepts. A name is not a concept. Let's use Sherlock Holmes for example. His name was not copyrightable. But the character, a highly intelligent and deductive detective who has a penchant for opium is. Song titles cannot be copyrighted, but the lyrics are like a poem. Song titles and character names (assuming they are distinguishable enough) are trademarked. So "John Smith" cannot be trademarked, nor a whole lot of song titles such as Material Girl, Stairway to Heaven, or Born to Run, yet "Yellow Submarine" and "Ziggy Stardust" were unique enough to trademark. So F&P have a copyright claim on anything that is distinguishable from common use tropes. They cannot copyright the use of "hyperspace" for example. Not only has that been used by others long before they did, so many others use that phrase. As it comes to race names just by themselves, that is not a copyright infringement but duplicating the characterizations are.

Accolade, then Atari then Stardock seem to have the rights to all trademarks for SC1&2 as well as the copyrights to any promotional materials (such as boxart). In addition, the copyrights of SC3 to the extent those are new design not part of SC1&2 . For example, the designs behind any new characters and races.

This isn't too unlike a lot of other franchises, lets say Duke Nukem where I believe the original studios own the copyrights to their own games but the Trademark passes on. I think it's 2k that owns the Trademark, but if they sell the old games, there is a royalty agreement that compensates the original studios (or those who have acquired their interest) for their copyrights.

To sell the old games, it really takes both of them. To make a proper sequel is going to take both of them. You probably aren't just going to be able just avoid using "Star Control", you'll have to change all the names like it was done with Bombshell which was intended to be a Duke Nukem game. It's a little easier for the Trademark holders. They own the names and as long is they avoid any copyrightable distinguishing characteristics, (i.e. new characters, new planets, new races), they can get away with it. Of course, both parties working together is the best as one can maintain all the "character" to the originals, which isn't what's happening here.

In short,
SC1&2: Copyrights to the game itself = F&P; Copyrights to promotional materials = Stardock; Trademarks = Stardock
SC3: Copyrights and Trademarks = Stardock excepting those copyrights that have been taken from the games SC1&2

One problem Fred and Paul seem to have is that they think copyright extends to a lot of things that it doesn't...