No More Waldo.....

The other day I contacted Andrew Young, a puppet enthusiast and film maker, and he has informed me that at some point The Character Shop, a company that makes pretty awesome animatronic characters, trademarked the term Waldo despite it having been used for many years to describe any control system that was similar in nature to the one in Robert Heinlein's short story "Waldo".

Here's what The Character Shop says about their Waldo systems.....

"Waldo®:TCS' trademark for its brand of ergonomic-gonio-kineti-telemetric input devices for controlling its puppets and animatronics. Ergonomic because it is engineered to fit a puppeteer's or performer's body (and/or head and/or face) and comfortably allow a wide range of physical freedom. Gonio- and kineti-metric because it measures the angle and movement of the wearer's joints and limbs. And telemetric because the movement data is measured and sent via remote control. In simpler terms, an electro-mechanical rig you wear that makes a puppet (whether actually three dimensional or a CGI "electronic puppet") mimic your movements."

Who knew that I was making an "ergonomic-gonio-kineti-telemetric" input device?....

Here's some more from TCS' Waldo statement....

"That's right! Waldo®, Facial Waldo®, Body Waldo®, Warrior Waldo® , and any use of the term Waldo when referring to data-capture input devices are all trademarks of The Character Shop. You can make use of a Waldo®-like system, but you can't call it a Waldo®!

So call it something else, please! Who wants to spend money on lawyers?"

So, warning heeded.... Despite my project being small and it being very unlikely that TCS will ever hear about it I shall no longer consider my controller as a Waldo®.

I guess I better get used to ergonomic-gonio-kineti-telemetric input device......