# Naming and brand

## overview.md
```yaml
id: naming-and-brand
title: Naming and brand
area: comms
summary: The game's title (Lor: The Ten Thousand Things) and studio name (CoCreations) are decided; domain and trademark filing remain open.
repo: n/a — this workspace (brand/brand.json, brand/naming.md)
depends_on: []
```

## What this is

Brand decisions for the Lor franchise: the game title (**decided**), the app's store listing name vs. its home-screen label (**decided**), the studio name (**decided**), the domain (**open, non-blocking**), and whether to register a trademark (**open, research done**). Every decided value lives in `brand/brand.json` and every surface reads from it — nothing here is hardcoded elsewhere.

## The title decision (CLOSED, 2026-08-05)

**The game is "Lor: The Ten Thousand Things."** `brand/brand.json`'s `title` is now set and `titleIsProvisional` is `false`.

**2026-08-13: Kris has reopened the title question.** "Lor: The Ten Thousand Things" remains the incumbent title on all live surfaces (`brand/brand.json`, the site, all UI — unchanged) but should now be treated as incumbent-under-review, not final. Kris strongly likes the "Land of ___" feel (areas/worlds you explore and create are core to the game) and is open to something with "Rah" in it (avoid the exact phrase "Legend of Rah" — SEO-occupied by N.K. Stouffer's book "The Legend of Rah and the Muggles"; the family-privacy question in `marketing-and-communication/CLAUDE.md` applies to any Rah-based public brand). A name-vote-as-mailing-list-builder idea is parked for later (community tooling deliberately deferred 2026-08-13). New candidates surfaced so far — "Spellgarden" (fully vetted and rejected, occupied-name collision) and "World of Witches" (floated, not vetted) — are recorded in `brand/naming.md`. Working title is now "Spellgrove" (Kris, 2026-08-13); full sweep record and finalist board in `brand/naming.md`; live surfaces unchanged.

**Rationale:** "The ten thousand things" (萬物, *wànwù*) is a phrase from the Laozi/*Dao De Jing* — the Dao gives birth to the one, the one to the two, the two to the three, the three to the ten thousand things. It names the entire manifold of existence as generated from a small number of fundamentals, which is a literal description of the game's own combinatorial system: 64 hexagrams, 8 trigrams, a handful of recipes, and everything a player can ever make from them. Nearest parallels in Hindu philosophy — *prapañca* (the proliferation of phenomena) and *nāma-rūpa* (name-and-form) — didn't become the title but are worth keeping in mind for codex/flavour text.

Full candidate record — including "Little Witches," "Land of Lor," "Lor Elementals," and the runner-up "Changing Lines" (kept on file, not dead) — with reasons for rejection, lives in `brand/naming.md`. Nothing here duplicates that; read it there.

## App label vs. store name (CLOSED)

Two different Android/iOS-level fields, easy to conflate:

- **Store listing name** (`brand.json`: `storeName`): **"Lor: The Ten Thousand Things"** — 28 characters, fits both the App Store's and Google Play's 30-character cap.
- **Home-screen / app label** (`CFBundleDisplayName` on iOS, `android:label` on Android — independent of the store listing name; iOS visibly truncates around 12 characters): **"10,000 Things"** (13 chars).

**Why not "Ten Thousand" as the app label** (12 chars, fits with zero truncation risk): live search-collision research found an existing App Store app called "Ten Thousand: Share & Win" (by Ten Thousand Me LLC) and another called "Ten Thousand Tsumego." "10,000 Things" is one character over the safest truncation line but distinguishes cleanly from both and actually completes the thought ("things") rather than leaving it dangling. Recorded as primary; "Ten Thousand" stays on file as the fallback if "10,000 Things" turns out to truncate badly on a specific device in testing.

## Trademark research (research only, not legal advice)

- **Do not attempt to register the game title itself.** "The Ten Thousand Things" is already in third-party public use (a Minneapolis theatre nonprofit operating since 1990, tenthousandthings.org) — that weakens distinctiveness enough that registering the phrase isn't worth pursuing.
- **Do consider registering "LOR" as a word mark, class 9** (downloadable game software) — the franchise outlasts any single game's title, so it's the actual asset worth protecting, not this title. IP Australia fees (current): standard application minimum A$250/class; TM Headstart (pre-assessment) minimum A$330/class; registration takes at least seven months; renewal A$400/class every 10 years.
- **Runeterra collision and distinctiveness researched 2026-08-12 — see [Q003](questions/003-trademark-filing.md)** for the full write-up. Short version: three-letter marks like "LOR" are prima facie registrable under IP Australia's own guidance (favourable); Legends of Runeterra is still actively developed and "LoR" is Riot's own house abbreviation, not just fan slang, which keeps a narrow reputation-based risk (s60/passing-off) open even though no earlier Australian "LOR" registration by Riot was found; the one remaining unknown (whether *any* other party already holds an AU "LOR" mark in class 9/41) needs a ~5-minute human click through IP Australia's TM Checker + ATMOSS, confirmed to require interactive use and not shortcuttable by an agent. Q003's Recommendation is now "run that 5-minute check, then file."
- **Class 41** (online entertainment services) may become relevant later if the barter marketplace (`barter-marketplace`) becomes an operated service rather than an in-game feature. Not a now-decision.

## Merch warning — record prominently, affects Kickstarter reward tiers

**"TEN THOUSAND" is a live, registered US trademark in class 25** (athletic apparel: shirts, pants, jackets, sweatshirts, hats and caps), owned by Ten Thousand Inc., a well-funded New York activewear brand. **Any physical apparel backer reward must carry the full title ("Lor: The Ten Thousand Things") or the Lor mark — never the bare short form "Ten Thousand."** This directly constrains reward-tier design in `kickstarter-prelaunch`; flag it there too, not just here.

## Copyright and IP (2026-08-12)

A public **Copyright & Intellectual Property notice** for the site has been drafted — see
[naming-and-brand/001](tasks/001-copyright-ip-page.md) for the implementation/publish task and
[Q004](questions/004-copyright-notice-legal-review.md) for the legal-review items blocking it.
The draft asserts CoCreations Australia Pty Ltd's ownership over the project's names and marks
(Lor, LOR, "Lor: The Ten Thousand Things," "10,000 Things," The Legend of Rah, Land of Lor, Lor
Elementals, CoCreations), its original systems (the 64-element/hexagram table, the trigram-axis
model, changing lines, the recipe/formula system, and more), its characters (Rah, Willow, Robby,
Eliza, Papa, Angel, Wisp) and world-building, and its creative/technical works — plus a broad
catch-all for present and future material, an all-rights-reserved statement, a no-licence-by-access
statement, and a notice addressed specifically to AI agents and scrapers about training/reproduction
use. It explicitly carves out the site's third-party-licensed fonts rather than overclaiming them.
Nothing is built or pushed live yet — that's gated on the legal-review question above, same as any
other public-facing claim from this epic.

**Rights-holding entity confirmed (2026-08-12).** Kris verified via ABN Lookup that
**CoCreations Australia Pty Ltd** (ABN 86 632 857 277, ACN 632 857 277) owns all the IP —
`brand/brand.json` now carries `studioAbn`/`studioAcn` alongside `studioLegalName`, and every
notice surface identifies the holder as "CoCreations Australia Pty Ltd (ABN 86 632 857 277)".
This resolves item 1 of Q004; its other four items (jurisdiction, third-party contributors,
AI-art copyright framing, trademark/copyright framing) are still open. Bot-discovery plumbing —
a sitemap entry for `/copyright` (via the site's existing `@astrojs/sitemap` integration),
`/.well-known/tdmrep.json` (TDM Reservation Protocol), and `noai`/`noimageai` robots meta tags —
is also drafted now, unbuilt/unpushed like the rest of this work.

**No pre-existing task about applying for copyright registration was found anywhere in the repo**
(only the unrelated, already-tracked [Q003](questions/003-trademark-filing.md) — a *trademark*
filing question, already living in this epic). If such a task exists somewhere outside this repo,
it needs to be created here from scratch rather than moved.

## Studio name — DECIDED (2026-07-30)

**The studio is CoCreations** (Kris's existing company, CoCreations Australia Pty Ltd). `brand.json`'s `studio` field is now `"CoCreations"`, with `studioLegalName` holding the full entity name for footer/legal use. [Q001](questions/001-studio-name.md) is answered; see its Decision section for the full record.

Kris's actual first choice, "Pinewood Studios" (his home/office is on Pinewood Circuit, and he already calls it that affectionately), **was never usable**: Pinewood Group's own terms of use register "PINEWOOD," "PINEWOOD SHEPPERTON," "PINEWOOD STUDIOS," and "SHEPPERTON STUDIOS" as trademarks in major jurisdictions worldwide, they operate internationally in entertainment, and app stores act quickly on trademark complaints. **This should not be revisited by mistake** — the name itself was the problem, not the enthusiasm behind it. The Pinewood-derived alternatives considered along the way (Pine Circuit Games, Pinewood Circuit, Circuit Studios) are superseded by this decision, not live options — kept here for the record only. "Lor Games," the placeholder this section previously recommended keeping, is likewise superseded.

## Domain — OPEN, a nice-to-have, not a blocker

The site already has a live, working URL today: `https://lor.kris.ai-task-runner.com`, served directly by the AI Task Runner platform (no deploy step, no DNS to configure). A custom domain is purely an upgrade for later — nothing is waiting on it.

- `lorgames.com` — **taken**.
- `lor-games.com` — available, **rejected**: inherits the "Lor"/"lore" search-homophone confusion without solving it, and a hyphenated domain reads as a second choice.
- `lor.games` — available, **rejected**: ~A$184/year is too expensive to justify for a personal creative project at this stage.
- **Still to check:** `lorgames.net`, `lorgames.co`, `playlor.com`, `lorstudio.com`, `lorstudios.com`, or a domain built on whichever studio name is eventually chosen.
- **Decision: this does not block launch, and there is no urgency.** Whenever a domain is picked, it can be pointed at the existing platform-hosted site with zero rebuild required. Recorded here specifically so the domain question can't hold up anything else, including the Kickstarter pre-launch page (`kickstarter-prelaunch`).

## Scope

- Maintaining `brand/naming.md` and this file as decisions land or open questions get resolved.
- Keeping `brand/brand.json` as the single propagation point — title, store name, and app label are all decided and live there now; studio name and domain are not yet fields to change because neither has a final answer.

## Non-goals

- Not a design epic — see `land-of-lor`'s own docs for anything that touches game mechanics, not this file.
- Not legal advice — the trademark section above is research to inform a decision, not a substitute for actually consulting a trademark attorney before filing anything.

## Key open questions

1. Domain: which of the unchecked candidates (or a `cocreations.com.au` subdomain, now that the studio name is decided) to register, and when?
2. Whether to actually file the LOR class-9 trademark, after running the TM Checker tool and investigating the Legends of Runeterra collision.

Studio name (formerly question 1 here) is decided — see above.

## Relevant docs

- `brand/naming.md` — full title-candidate record with rejection reasons.
- `land-of-lor/docs/thought-specs/little-witches.md` — the voice note behind the rejected "Little Witches" candidate.
- `epics/kickstarter-prelaunch/overview.md` — where the merch/trademark constraint becomes a concrete reward-tier design rule.

## status.md
```yaml
updated: 2026-08-13
parked: false
tasks: {"backlog":0,"needs-input":2,"ready":0,"doing":0,"review":0,"done":0}
open_questions: ["naming-and-brand/Q002","naming-and-brand/Q003","naming-and-brand/Q004"]
tag: needs-human-decision
next: Kris/a lawyer resolves Q004's remaining items (jurisdiction, third-party contributors, AI-art framing, trademark/copyright framing — entity name is answered) to unblock naming-and-brand/001 — plus Q002 (domain) and Q003 (trademark filing) whenever convenient, none urgent. Also new: naming-and-brand/002, Kris runs the public game-name poll (Spellgrove vs Cauldria vs Portilia, optional Rahlands) and records the final title.
```

## Task summary

Two tasks: [naming-and-brand/001](tasks/001-copyright-ip-page.md) — publish the drafted Copyright
& IP notice page, currently `needs-input` (blocked by Q004) — and
[naming-and-brand/002](tasks/002-run-the-game-name-poll.md) — run the public game-name poll on the
vetted shortlist, currently `needs-input` (a human task, not blocked on a tracked question).
Everything else remaining in this epic is a live decision Kris is actually engaged with, not work.
Q001 (studio name) is answered — CoCreations, 2026-07-30.

## Open questions

- [Q002 — Custom domain](questions/002-domain.md)
- [Q003 — File the LOR class-9 trademark?](questions/003-trademark-filing.md)
- [Q004 — Confirm legal-review items before publishing the Copyright & IP notice](questions/004-copyright-notice-legal-review.md)

## Answered

- [Q001 — Studio name](questions/001-studio-name.md) — CoCreations, 2026-07-30.

## Next

Q004's entity-name item is answered (CoCreations Australia Pty Ltd, ABN 86 632 857 277, confirmed
2026-08-12) — its four remaining items (jurisdiction, third-party contributors, AI-art copyright
framing, trademark/copyright framing) still need a lawyer's read before naming-and-brand/001 can
leave `needs-input`. Q002 and Q003 remain open whenever convenient, neither urgent nor blocking
anything else in the project. New as of 2026-08-13: naming-and-brand/002, Kris's public game-name
poll (Spellgrove vs Cauldria vs Portilia, optional Rahlands if the family-privacy question
resolves YES) — a handful of ~15-minute prerequisite human checks (ATMOSS, App Store Connect,
domain) then post-and-gather, whenever convenient.

## tasks/ (2)

### naming-and-brand/001 — Publish the Copyright & IP notice page
```yaml
id: naming-and-brand/001
title: Publish the Copyright & IP notice page
epic: naming-and-brand
state: needs-input
priority: 2
blocked_by: ["naming-and-brand/Q004"]
estimate: S
created: 2026-08-12
updated: 2026-08-12
claimed_by: null
claimed_at: null
delivers: []
review_artifact: site/src/pages/copyright.astro
```

## What to do

A full draft of the public Copyright & Intellectual Property notice already exists in the site's
source tree (`repo: n/a — this workspace`, same as the rest of this epic):

- `site/src/pages/copyright.astro` — the page itself (`/copyright`), including an embedded
  JSON-LD structured-data block (schema.org `WebSite` + `copyrightHolder` + enumerated
  `additionalProperty` entries for protected names/concepts/characters).
- `site/src/pages/copyright.md.ts` — its plain-markdown mirror (`/copyright.md`), matching this
  site's existing pattern (see `about.md.ts`, `press.md.ts`).
- `site/public/ai.txt` — short-form machine-readable notice for AI systems/scrapers.
- `site/public/robots.txt` — new file (none existed before), allows crawling, points at
  `/ai.txt` and `/copyright`.
- Small sitewide hooks: `Base.astro` gained a `<meta name="copyright">` tag, a
  `<link rel="license" href="/copyright">`, and a `<meta name="robots" content="noai, noimageai">`
  tag on every page; `Footer.astro` gained a "Copyright & IP" link and switched its copyright line
  to a proper year range; `llms.txt.ts` gained a line pointing agents at `/copyright.md`.
- `site/public/.well-known/tdmrep.json` — TDM Reservation Protocol declaration
  (`tdm-reservation: 1`, `tdm-policy` pointing at `/copyright`).
- `/copyright` is included in the site's existing `@astrojs/sitemap`-generated `sitemap-index.xml`
  automatically (no code change needed — it's a normal page route); `robots.txt` already points at
  it and now also references `/.well-known/tdmrep.json`.

**This task is to review, correct, and actually build/push/deploy that draft** — none of it has
been built or pushed yet (deliberately, per the task that produced it). Concretely:

1. Read `naming-and-brand/questions/004-copyright-notice-legal-review.md` and get its remaining
   items resolved (jurisdiction, third-party-contributor assignment, AI-art copyright framing,
   trademark/copyright distinction — entity name is resolved as of 2026-08-12) — this task is
   `blocked_by` that question and shouldn't move past `needs-input` until it's fully answered.
2. Apply whatever wording changes the review produces directly in `copyright.astro` /
   `copyright.md.ts` (keep the two in sync — the markdown mirror is hand-maintained, not
   generated from the Astro page).
3. Build (`cd site && npm run build`) and confirm the page renders correctly and the JSON-LD
   block is valid JSON (e.g. `xmllint` isn't relevant here, but a build failure or a broken
   `set:html` would show up immediately).
4. Commit and push, per this workspace's normal convention (`CLAUDE.md`'s "push by default" rule
   — this is exactly the kind of change that convention is about, since the deploy watcher only
   ever sees `origin/master`).
5. Verify the live page per `epics/PICKUP.md` step 8 (check the deploy log, then load
   `https://lor.kris.ai-task-runner.com/copyright` and `/ai.txt`/`/robots.txt`).

## Definition of done

- `/copyright` is live, matches whatever the legal review actually approved (not necessarily
  verbatim what's in the draft today), and the JSON-LD block parses.
- `/copyright.md`, `/ai.txt`, and `/robots.txt` are live and consistent with the HTML page.
- The footer link, `Base.astro` meta/`link rel="license"` tags, and the `/llms.txt` line are live
  sitewide.

## Docs to read first

- `naming-and-brand/questions/004-copyright-notice-legal-review.md` — the blocking question; item
  1 (entity name) is resolved, items 2-5 are still open.
- `epics/naming-and-brand/overview.md`'s new "Copyright and IP" section.
- `brand/brand.json` — `studioLegalName`/`studioAbn`/`studioAcn`/`studio` are the values the draft
  reads from; if the legal review changes any of them, update them there (single source of truth)
  rather than hardcoding a different string in the copyright page alone.

## Assumptions

- Treated "implement/publish the drafted page" as the actual build-and-push action, not a second
  round of drafting — the draft in `copyright.astro`/`copyright.md.ts` is intended to be
  publish-ready already, pending only the legal-review items in Q004.
- No pre-existing task about "applying for copyright registration on LoR/RAR" was found anywhere
  in the repo (searched every `epics/*/tasks/*.md`, `deliverables/`, and `decisions/` for
  "copyright" — zero hits before this task; "RAR" doesn't appear anywhere as a real term, only as
  a substring of unrelated words like "prepared"). The closest existing object is
  `naming-and-brand/questions/003-trademark-filing.md` (trademark, not copyright, and already
  filed under this same epic) — left untouched rather than reinterpreted or moved, since silently
  repurposing an existing open question would violate this board's rule against acting on open
  questions beyond what they actually ask. Flagged for Kris to confirm whether a real
  copyright-registration task exists somewhere outside this repo (e.g. in a personal notes app)
  that should be created here from scratch.

### naming-and-brand/002 — Run the game-name poll
```yaml
id: naming-and-brand/002
title: Run the game-name poll
epic: naming-and-brand
state: needs-input
priority: 2
blocked_by: []
estimate: S
created: 2026-08-13
updated: 2026-08-13
claimed_by: null
claimed_at: null
delivers: []
review_artifact: null
```

## What to do

**This is a human task, assigned to Kris — not agent-executable.** It sits in `needs-input`
because the action itself (posting to Facebook, clicking through IP Australia's TM Checker,
registering a domain) is Kris's to take, not because it's blocked on anyone else's decision.

**Goal:** run a public poll (Facebook post to the warm network first) on the vetted name
shortlist, gather resonance data, then Kris makes the final title call.

### Poll slate

All fully-green vetted — see `brand/naming.md`'s "2026-08-13 shortlist" section for each name's
full sweep record:

- **Spellgrove** (current working title)
- **Cauldria**
- **Portilia**
- **Optional 4th: Rahlands** — only if the family-privacy question in
  `marketing-and-communication/CLAUDE.md` is resolved YES first.
- **Do not include Portalia in any slate containing Portilia** — recorded poll-design caution
  (`brand/naming.md`): voters hear them as one name.

### Pre-registered prediction (recorded 2026-08-13)

Kris predicts **Spellgrove** wins. Writing this down beforehand turns the poll into a real test —
a surprise result is high-value data, not a failure.

### Before the poll goes public (prerequisite human checks, ~15 min)

- IP Australia TM Checker/ATMOSS pass on the slate names, especially Spellgrove (same interactive
  process as [Q003](../questions/003-trademark-filing.md)'s LOR check — interactive, not
  agent-shortcuttable).
- App Store Connect name-availability check for Spellgrove.
- Domain check/registration for Spellgrove (spellgrove.com etc.).
- Handle pre-grab for all finalists: **not required** — Kris's explicit call, 2026-08-13
  (low-profile risk accepted: not enough of a following that announcing the shortlist risks
  someone grabbing the names). Planned handle pattern for the eventual winner:
  `@spellgrovegame`-style (bare `@spellgrove` on TikTok/YouTube is already held by individuals).

### Poll design notes

- Frame as "help us choose from our vetted shortlist" — community input, founder keeps the final
  call.
- Ask parents to run the recall test: "read these names to your kids, tell me tomorrow which one
  they remember." Next-day recall from kids is the strongest signal; adult votes measure
  engagement/politeness more than market fit. If adults and kids diverge, weight the kids' recall.
- The poll is also the first public build-in-public beat pre-Kickstarter — it has value
  independent of the vote counts.
- If/when community tooling gets built (deliberately deferred 2026-08-13 — an email service wired
  into the site's `betaFormEndpoint` etc.), an email-gated vote doubles as a mailing-list builder.
  Fine to run this first poll without it.

## Definition of done

The poll has been posted, resonance data (including kid-recall responses) has been gathered, and
Kris has recorded a final title decision — see the follow-ups below for what happens next.

## Follow-ups after the poll (spawn as separate tasks when reached, not now)

1. Kris makes and records the final title decision in `brand/naming.md` (closes the reopened-title
   note in `../overview.md`).
2. Create social accounts for the winning name (`@spellgrovegame` pattern, or the equivalent for
   whichever name wins).
3. Register the domain for the winning name (supersedes/joins [Q002](../questions/002-domain.md)).
4. If the winner is not the incumbent: propagate the new title through `brand/brand.json` (single
   propagation point) → site, UI, export presets (note: `export_presets.cfg` still carries a stale
   "Land of Lor") → the App Store Connect app-name field.
5. Vetting with Rah and more adults/children continues in parallel (already noted in
   `brand/naming.md`).

## Docs to read first

- `brand/naming.md` — full candidate record and the 2026-08-13 shortlist sweep.
- `../overview.md` — the reopened-title note.
- [Q003](../questions/003-trademark-filing.md) — the interactive ATMOSS-check precedent.
- `marketing-and-communication/CLAUDE.md` — family-privacy question gating Rahlands.

## Assumptions

- This task was requested directly (not self-generated) with full content specified; filed under
  `naming-and-brand` rather than a `marketing-and-communication` epic, since no such epic exists in
  `epics/` — `marketing-and-communication/` is a top-level, non-epic folder with its own plan/log
  convention, and this task is fundamentally a naming decision, which is squarely this epic's
  domain (see `brand/naming.md`, owned here).

## questions/ (4)

### naming-and-brand/Q001 — Studio name
```yaml
id: naming-and-brand/Q001
title: Studio name
epic: naming-and-brand
blocks: []
status: answered
raised: 2026-08-05
answered: 2026-07-30T00:00:00.000Z
decision_ref: null
```

## Decision (2026-07-30)

**The studio is CoCreations** — Kris's existing company, CoCreations Australia Pty Ltd. `brand/brand.json`'s `studio` field is now `"CoCreations"` (`studioLegalName` holds the full entity name, used in the site footer). Neither "Lor Games" (the placeholder below) nor a Pinewood-derived name (see Recommendation) was chosen — Kris already has a studio, so this reuses it rather than inventing a new one. Every site surface (footer, press kit, brand references) reads this from `brand.json`; nothing is hardcoded.

(`decisions/NNNN-slug.md` doesn't exist as a mechanism yet per `epics/README.md` — this Decision section, plus the matching write-up in `epics/naming-and-brand/overview.md`, is the record until it does.)

## The question

What is the studio name? "Lor Games" is in use in `brand.json` today as a placeholder, not a confirmed final choice.

## Options

- **Keep "Lor Games."** Already wired into `brand.json`; one name across studio/franchise/site is simplest at this project's current scale. Costs nothing to keep; loses nothing by deferring a fancier name.
- **Move to a Pinewood-derived alternative** (Pine Circuit Games / Pinewood Circuit / Circuit Studios / a street-number-derived name) — preserves the personal meaning behind Kris's original (unusable) "Pinewood Studios" idea without the trademark collision.
- **"Pinewood Studios" itself** — **not a real option.** Pinewood Group holds this and close variants as registered trademarks internationally; recorded here so it isn't accidentally revisited.

## Recommendation

Keep **"Lor Games"** for now. It's already live everywhere, costs nothing, and studio/franchise names commonly differ once a studio ships more than one thing (Mojang/Minecraft, FromSoftware/Elden Ring) — there's no urgency to invent a more personal studio name before there's a second product that would benefit from one. Hold a Pinewood-derived name in reserve for that future moment rather than deciding it now.

### naming-and-brand/Q002 — Custom domain
```yaml
id: naming-and-brand/Q002
title: Custom domain
epic: naming-and-brand
blocks: []
status: open
raised: 2026-08-05
answered: null
decision_ref: null
```

## The question

Register a custom domain, and if so, which one? Not urgent — the site has a live URL today (`https://lor.kris.ai-task-runner.com`) and a domain can be pointed at it later with zero rebuild.

## Options

- **`lorgames.net` / `lorgames.co` / `playlor.com` / `lorstudio(s).com`** — none checked for availability yet.
- **Derive from the eventual studio name** (see Q001) once that's settled, rather than picking a Lor-prefixed domain now.
- **Do nothing for now.** Keep the platform URL; revisit once/if a launch milestone (Kickstarter, store listing) makes a branded domain worth the (small) cost and setup effort.

## Recommendation

**Do nothing for now.** There's no cost to waiting — `lorgames.com` (the obvious choice) is taken, and every checked alternative was either rejected already (`lor-games.com`, `lor.games`) or unchecked. Revisit alongside Q001 (studio name) so the domain and studio name can be chosen together rather than the domain locking in a name pattern first.

**Note, 2026-07-30:** Q001 is now answered — the studio is CoCreations, which already owns `cocreations.com.au`. Hosting the site under a `cocreations.com.au` subdomain (e.g. `lor.cocreations.com.au`) is now a live, concrete option worth weighing alongside a dedicated Lor-branded domain. No decision yet — recorded here so it's not lost, not because it's settled.

### naming-and-brand/Q004 — Confirm legal-review items before publishing the Copyright & IP notice
```yaml
id: naming-and-brand/Q004
title: Confirm legal-review items before publishing the Copyright & IP notice
epic: naming-and-brand
blocks: ["naming-and-brand/001"]
status: open
raised: 2026-08-12
answered: null
decision_ref: null
```

## The question

A draft Copyright & Intellectual Property notice for the public site has been written
(`site/src/pages/copyright.astro` + `.md.ts` twin, plus `site/public/ai.txt`,
`site/public/robots.txt`, and small sitewide hooks in `Base.astro`/`Footer.astro`/`llms.txt.ts` —
see `naming-and-brand/001`). It asserts broad "all rights reserved" ownership on behalf of
CoCreations Australia Pty Ltd over the project's names, systems, characters, and creative works.
Before it is built and pushed live, several items in it need a decision or a lawyer's read rather
than an agent's guess:

1. ~~**Rights-holding entity.**~~ **ANSWERED 2026-08-12.** Kris confirmed via ABN Lookup
   (https://abr.business.gov.au/ABN/View?abn=86632857277) that **CoCreations Australia Pty Ltd**
   (ABN 86 632 857 277, ACN 632 857 277 — Australian Private Company, ABN active from 11 Apr 2019,
   main business location QLD 4552) owns all the IP, not Kris personally. `brand/brand.json` now
   carries `studioAbn`/`studioAcn` alongside `studioLegalName` as the single source of truth, and
   every notice surface (copyright page, its markdown mirror, JSON-LD, `ai.txt`, the sitewide
   `<meta name="copyright">` tag, and the footer) reads the ABN-qualified name from there. This
   item no longer blocks anything below.
2. **Jurisdiction(s) to name**, if any beyond the implicit Australian one from the entity.
3. **Third-party human contributors.** Robby's hand-drawn art (first attempt) and other family
   collaborators depicted or quoted across the series may need an explicit assignment or licence
   to CoCreations for the "all rights reserved by CoCreations" claim to be airtight as to their
   specific contributions. Not assumed true in the draft — flagged instead.
4. **AI-generated assets** (PixelLab character art) sit in an unsettled area of copyright law as
   to whether they're copyrightable subject matter at all in every relevant jurisdiction. The
   draft claims them as proprietary/protected content rather than asserting copyright over them
   specifically, but that phrasing choice deserves a legal read, not an agent's judgement call.
5. **Trademark vs. copyright framing.** The draft is careful to say "claimed," never
   "registered" (no trademark is filed — see `naming-and-brand/questions/003-trademark-filing.md`,
   still open), but the overall trademark/copyright distinction in the notice should get an
   explicit lawyer's sign-off before it's presented publicly as authoritative.

**Status: still open.** Item 1 is resolved; items 2–5 still need a lawyer's read before
`naming-and-brand/001` can leave `needs-input`. This question stays open until all five are
settled.

## Options

- **Get a lawyer's read on the five items above before publishing**, then push the already-written
  draft with whatever wording changes come back. Lowest risk: a public IP notice with a wrong
  entity name, an overclaimed AI-art copyright, or unassigned contributor rights is the kind of
  mistake that's awkward to walk back once it's been live and citable.
- **Publish as-is now, iterate later.** Faster, and the draft is already conservative in most of
  the ways that matter (hedges the trademark claim, carves out third-party fonts explicitly,
  flags AI art as "proprietary" rather than "copyrighted"). Risk is publishing something that
  needs a correction later, which is a worse look for a legal notice specifically than for
  ordinary site copy.
- **Publish a reduced version now** (drop the AI-art and third-party-contributor specifics,
  keep the broad catch-all and the core ownership/no-licence/AI-scraper language) and expand once
  the fuller review lands. Middle ground — ships the protective baseline sooner, defers the parts
  that are genuinely unsettled.

## Recommendation

**Get the lawyer's read first.** This is the one page on the site whose entire purpose is to be
relied on as an authoritative statement of rights — an error in it (an unenforceable overclaim,
unassigned contributor rights) costs more credibility than the few weeks' delay costs momentum.
The draft is otherwise ready to go the moment sign-off lands: no further drafting work is
expected, just a review pass against the four remaining items above (item 1 is resolved).

### naming-and-brand/Q003 — File the LOR class-9 trademark?
```yaml
id: naming-and-brand/Q003
title: File the LOR class-9 trademark?
epic: naming-and-brand
blocks: []
status: open
raised: 2026-08-05
answered: null
decision_ref: null
```

## The question

Whether to actually file a class-9 (downloadable game software) word-mark application for "LOR" with IP Australia.

## Research findings (2026-08-12)

**Research only, not legal advice** — same caveat as the rest of this epic's trademark section
(see `overview.md`'s "Non-goals"). This de-risks the two concerns named in the original
Recommendation below with web research; it does not replace a lawyer's read before money is
spent. Sources and access dates are listed at the bottom.

### 1. The Legends of Runeterra collision

- **Still actively developed in 2026.** Riot Games co-founder Marc Merrill said in May 2025 that
  LoR "isn't just surviving or in maintenance mode" and is "adapting, growing, and laying down new
  roots" — the game had a rocky patch (team-size reduction, pivot toward the single-player "Path
  of Champions" mode) but was not shut down, and current server-status checks show it fully
  operational. This is a live, ongoing collision risk, not a fading one — don't file expecting the
  name to fall out of use.
- **"LoR" is Riot's own house abbreviation, not just fan slang.** The League of Legends wiki's
  namespace for the game is literally titled `LoR:Legends_of_Runeterra`; Riot's own support site
  lives at `support-legendsofruneterra.riotgames.com` and its articles use "LoR" throughout;
  community sites (Mobalytics, LoR Scout, Mastering Runeterra) all use "LoR" as the standard short
  form. This matters legally, not just for SEO: under the Australian Trade Marks Act, an
  **unregistered** mark can still ground an opposition under **s60** (trade mark similar to one
  that has "acquired a reputation in Australia") or a common-law **passing-off** claim, if the
  reputation attaches to "LoR" itself as a source-identifier — not merely to the full name. Riot
  using "LoR" as its own recurring shorthand (not just fans) is exactly the kind of fact that
  would support such a reputation claim, if Riot ever chose to make one.
- **But: no evidence found of Riot actually registering "LOR" as a standalone mark**, in the US or
  Australia. Riot's USPTO filings (searched via Justia's Riot Games, Inc. owner listing) are for
  "LEGENDS OF RUNETERRA" spelled out (Reg. Nos. 6284925, 6284926, 6186842, plus pending
  applications) — no bare "LOR"/"LoR" word mark turned up anywhere in that portfolio, alongside
  their other registered marks (RIOT GAMES, LEAGUE OF LEGENDS, RIOT PIN, LPL, VCT, etc.). This is
  consistent with how game studios typically file — the shipped product name, not the community
  nickname — but it is not proof of absence in Australia specifically; see the ATMOSS gap below.
- **Distinguishing the two risk types, as asked:**
  - **Legal conflict risk at the registration stage (s44):** low-to-unconfirmed. IP Australia's
    s44 examination compares an application against *earlier filed/registered* trade marks, not
    against community slang. No earlier "LOR" registration by Riot was found. This risk is real
    only if Riot holds an Australian "LOR" registration that wasn't found here (see below) — an
    ATMOSS check closes this gap directly.
  - **Legal conflict risk post-filing (s60 opposition / passing off):** genuinely open, and not
    resolved by an ATMOSS search alone, because it doesn't depend on registration — it depends on
    whether Riot has *reputation* in "LoR" as a mark in Australia specifically. Plausible given
    Riot's own use of the abbreviation, but reputation is a fact question IP Australia's search
    tools can't answer; this is the piece a lawyer's read (or just accepting the residual risk)
    actually resolves, not a free tool.
  - **Marketing/SEO confusion risk:** real and separate from either legal risk above — "LOR" as a
    search term will always pull Legends of Runeterra results first, given its scale versus this
    franchise. That's a discoverability cost regardless of what any registry says, and doesn't
    change with a trademark search either way.

### 2. Other "LOR" marks in class 9 / class 41 — ATMOSS/WIPO/USPTO search attempted, blocked

Direct, automated queries were attempted against IP Australia's Australian Trade Mark Search
(search.ipaustralia.gov.au), WIPO's Global Brand Database, and two third-party aggregators
(Trademarkia, TrademarkElite). **All of them require live interactive use** — ATMOSS and WIPO's
database are JavaScript search shells with no results embedded in the page until a human types a
query (WIPO's also sits behind a CAPTCHA); the two aggregators returned HTTP 403 to automated
fetches. This means **exact hit data (mark/owner/class/status) for "LOR" could not be pulled
programmatically** — it is not something this research pass can shortcut, same as the TM Checker
tool below. General web/news search turned up no reporting of any other "LOR"-mark filing in AU
class 9 or 41 by anyone (Riot or otherwise), but that's a weak negative — absence of news coverage
isn't absence of a filing. **This is the one piece of this question that still needs an actual
human click-through** (see the TM Checker section below — the same ~5-minute ATMOSS visit answers
both the distinctiveness pre-check and this exact-hits question together).

### 3. Distinctiveness of a 3-letter mark

IP Australia's Trade Marks Examiner's Manual (`manuals.ipaustralia.gov.au`, Part 22, "Letters")
draws a clear line by length:

- **Single letters** generally lack distinguishing capacity without stylisation and usually need
  evidence of use (e.g. "M" for mobile).
- **Two-letter combinations** are prima facie capable of distinguishing *if* they have no
  descriptive significance in relation to the goods.
- **Three-or-more-letter combinations — LOR's category — are prima facie capable of
  distinguishing**, per the manual's own reasoning: "there is likely to be less need for use of
  these combinations" (i.e. three-letter strings are much less likely to be a generic
  abbreviation everyone needs to use descriptively, unlike "OJ" for orange juice or "CPREA" as an
  industry acronym). The exception is a well-known acronym/abbreviation *for the actual goods* —
  e.g. "LOR" would fail if it were shorthand for a category of software, which it isn't.
- **Applied to this case:** "LOR" is coined, not descriptive of "downloadable game software" —
  it doesn't describe a genre, mechanic, or feature the way "OJ" describes orange juice. That
  favours registrability on distinctiveness grounds specifically. This is a different question
  from the Runeterra-collision risk above (distinctiveness is about the mark's relationship to
  *the goods*, s60/passing-off is about the mark's relationship to *another trader's reputation*)
  — a mark can clear distinctiveness cleanly and still face a reputation-based challenge, and
  that's exactly the shape of this case.

### 4. TM Checker — confirmed interactive-only, steps for Kris

IP Australia's free TM Checker (`ipaustralia.gov.au/trade-marks/search-existing-trade-marks/tm-checker`)
is an AI-assisted preliminary-risk tool, but it is **JS-driven and cannot be queried
non-interactively** — there is no URL-parameter or API path that returns a result; it requires a
human to open the page, click "Start," and step through its form. No account is required. **This
is the one genuinely trivial follow-up left in this whole question:**

1. Go to `https://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/trade-marks/search-existing-trade-marks/tm-checker`.
2. Click "Start," enter "LOR" as a word mark.
3. Select goods/services matching class 9 (downloadable game software).
4. Read the result — it flags likely examination problems (including similar existing marks) but
   explicitly does not guarantee an outcome.
5. While the page is open, also run the same "LOR" query through the ATMOSS link on the same
   "search existing trade marks" page — this gets item 2 above (exact hits) for free in the same
   sitting, since both tools live under the same IP Australia section.

Total time: **about 5 minutes**, exactly as the original Recommendation below estimated.

### 5. Timing / non-use removal — grounds the "file now vs file near launch" trade-off

Current Australian rule (Trade Marks Act 1995, as amended, applying to marks filed on or after
24 February 2019 — which any new filing would be): a newly registered mark has a **3-year grace
period of immunity from non-use removal**, running from the date the mark is *entered on the
Register* (not the filing date) — a s92(4)(b) non-use removal application can't even be lodged
until 3 years after registration, and then only for a mark that's had a further continuous 3-year
period of non-use ending one month before the removal application. In practice: **filing now
buys roughly 3+ years of safety before non-use becomes a live risk at all**, and given
registration itself takes ~7 months, the real exposure window (registered-but-unused) before the
franchise plausibly ships is comfortably inside that grace period even on the "file now" branch.
This meaningfully weakens the "don't file at all, for now" option's stated rationale below — the
non-use risk it warns about doesn't actually bite for years, not immediately.

### Sources (accessed 2026-08-12)

- [Marc Merrill on LoR's status](https://www.thegamer.com/legends-of-runeterra-surviving-maintenance-mode-riot-games-cofounder/) (TheGamer)
- [LoR server status](https://status.technobezz.com/legends-of-runeterra) (technobezz)
- [Legends of Runeterra Wiki namespace `LoR:`](https://wiki.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/LoR:Legends_of_Runeterra) (League of Legends Wiki)
- [Riot Games, Inc. trademark portfolio](https://trademarks.justia.com/owners/riot-games-inc-1359372/) (Justia Trademarks)
- [LEGENDS OF RUNETERRA USPTO filing detail](https://trademarks.justia.com/881/47/legends-of-88147470.html) (Justia Trademarks)
- [IP Australia Trade Marks Examiner's Manual, Part 22.8 "Letters"](http://manuals.ipaustralia.gov.au/trademark/8.-letters)
- [IP Australia Trade Marks Examiner's Manual, Part 22.3 "Inherent adaptation to distinguish"](https://manuals.ipaustralia.gov.au/trademark/3.-inherent-adaptation-to-distinguish)
- [TM Checker tool](https://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/trade-marks/search-existing-trade-marks/tm-checker) (IP Australia)
- [Trade Marks Act 1995 (Cth) s60](https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/tma1995121/s60.html) (AustLII)
- [Non-use removal grace period explainer](https://oercollective.caul.edu.au/au-trade-mark-law/chapter/removal-for-non-use/) (Australian Trade Mark Law and Practice, CAUL OER)
- [Non-use dates explainer](https://www.gestalt.law/insights/trademark-non-use-dates) (Gestalt Law)
- IP Australia's own ATMOSS (`search.ipaustralia.gov.au`) and WIPO's Global Brand Database
  (`branddb.wipo.int`) were checked directly and confirmed to require interactive/CAPTCHA-gated
  human use — no results could be retrieved programmatically (see item 2 above).

## Options

- **File now.** Protects the franchise name early. Costs: A$250/class minimum standard application (or A$330 for TM Headstart pre-assessment), ~7 months to register, A$400/class every 10 years to renew. The 3-letter-distinctiveness risk is now researched and favourable (LOR is prima facie registrable — see finding 3). The Runeterra collision is now understood precisely: low risk at the registration-examination stage (no earlier "LOR" mark found; s44 doesn't reach community slang), but a genuine, unresolved reputation-based risk (s60/passing-off) that no free tool fully closes — see finding 1. Non-use isn't a near-term concern either way — see finding 5.
- **Run IP Australia's free TM Checker (and, in the same sitting, ATMOSS) first, then decide.** Costs nothing, ~5 minutes, confirmed to require a human click-through (finding 4) — closes the one remaining unknown (finding 2: whether any other party, including Riot, already holds an AU "LOR" registration in class 9/41) before spending anything.
- **Don't file at all, for now.** The franchise has shipped nothing yet. Weaker than it first appears: the "non-use is a near-term risk" premise doesn't hold — the 3-year grace period (finding 5) means non-use isn't a live concern for years after filing, well past this franchise's Christmas 2026 target.

## Recommendation

**Run the TM Checker + ATMOSS 5-minute check (finding 4), then file.** The research above resolves
everything the original Recommendation deferred except one narrow, genuinely irreducible fact
question — whether an AU "LOR" registration already exists (finding 2) — which needs a human
click, not more research. Distinctiveness now looks favourable (finding 3), the registration-stage
collision risk with Runeterra looks low (finding 1), and the non-use concern that motivated
"don't file at all" doesn't actually bite on this timeline (finding 5). The one thing this research
*can't* resolve is the residual s60/reputation risk from Riot's own use of "LoR" as a house
abbreviation (finding 1) — that's a judgement call about acceptable risk, not a fact IP Australia's
tools will ever answer, and is exactly the kind of thing worth a lawyer's five-minute read (same
lawyer already needed for [Q004](004-copyright-notice-legal-review.md)) rather than resolving it
here.

## deliverables (0)