How do I license defunct vehicle brands for a video game?

StigBelcherStyl

StigBelcherStyl

1,266
Australia
QLD,
StigBelcherStyle
Does anyone know the ins and outs of licenseing defunct vehicle brands for a video game? The vehicles I'm trying to license are listed below most are from over 100 years ago, does anyone know where i could find information about this too?

  • Acme Motor & Engineering Company - Victoria, Australia, 1904 - 1916
  • A. H. McDonald & Company - Victoria, Australia, 1908 - 1955
  • A.Neilson Coach Factory - Queensland, Australia, 1903
  • Australian Six - New South Wales, Australia, 1918 - 1925
  • Australis - New South Wales, Australia, 1896 - 1906
  • Caldwell Vale Truck & Bus Co. - New South Wales, Australia, 1907 - 1916
  • Campbell Motorcycles/Cars - Tasmania, Australia, 1904
  • Duigan (John Duigan) - Victoria, Australia, 1910
  • Finlayson Bros & Co. Pty Ltd - Tasmania, Australia, 1900 - 1904
  • Haines & Grut Motor Buggy Co. Pty Ltd - Victoria, Australia, 1908 - 1909
  • Highland (Charles Highland) - Queensland, Australia, 1897
  • Innes (G.P. Innes) - New South Wales, Australia, 1904
  • J.A.C. Ziegler - Victoria, Australia, 1905
  • Knowles Automobile and Motor Power Co. - New South Wales, Australia, 1903
  • Lancelot de mole Tank - New South Wales, Australia, 1911 - 1913
  • Lewis Cycle & Motor Works - South Australia, Australia, 1899 - 1901
  • Monarch Motorcycles (Albert & Robert Sulman) - Victoria, Australia, 1913
  • Pioneer, Australian Horseless Carriage Syndicate - Victoria, Australia, 1897
  • Shearer (David Shearer) - South Australia, Australia, 1898 - 1900
  • Spencer Motorcycles - Queensland, Australia, 1903 - 1910
  • Sunshine Harvester Works - Victoria, Australia, 1904 - 1970
  • Tarrant Motor Company - Victoria, Australia, 1900 - 1907
  • Thomson (Herbert Thomson) - Victoria, Australia, 1896 - 1899
  • Vulcan Engineering Works - Victoria, Australia, 1916 - 1919
  • Waratah Motorcycles - New South Wales, Australia, 1911 - 1948
  • Whiting Motorcycles - Victoria, Australia, 1912 - 1914
 
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Try to find out if they have any "descendants" and get into negotioations with them. If not, debrand them like they are debranded on Roblox games.
 
Hire a lawyer, just as a game publisher would for a current make. There is more Legalese in the process than you might think.

Which means if you don’t have the cash in hand for one, you have two options; a) request a loan from your bank, to which you’ll be on the hook for tens if not hundreds of thousands if they approve, or b) find people who will want to invest in this, which means establishing a partnership or incorporating, which is whole separate area of business law entirely, and I’m not familiar with Australia’s laws regarding that. I hate to rain on the parade, but I doubt you’ll find many people who’ll think paying for licenses for obscure Australian manufacturers from the early 20th century will return a profit for them.
 
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You could do some exploratory research by trawling through Intellectual property databases such as ...

IP Australia | Trade Mark Search

Australian Trade Mark Search is the Australian Government’s trade mark search system.
search.ipaustralia.gov.au search.ipaustralia.gov.au

www.wipo.int

WIPO - World Intellectual Property Organization

The world’s number one source for global intellectual property (patents, industrial designs, copyright, trademarks etc.) information, resources, and services.
www.wipo.int www.wipo.int

... and seeing if you get any hits on anything that would be a trade marked name, a registered design, or something that was patented.

If there's a publicly accessible register of companies in Australia you might find records of what happened to the companies.

But, yeah... contact an IP Lawyer, have a consultation with them and explain what you want and they'll undertake the searches for you (at a cost, obvs). You'd then want to seek advice on actually licensing something if you've not done it before - that's assuming you need to actually license it. Most IP protection expires if it's not renewed, whilst expired patents (for instance), can still offer a certain degree of protection from someone else claiming them, from the point of view of wanting to license the IP, you might not actually need to if it all expired a long time ago... but again, that's why you'd want to speak to a professional, you'll want to know what you're agreeing to, and what you asking of the other party if you need to put a license agreement in place.
 
StigBelcherStyl
Does anyone know the ins and outs of licenseing defunct vehicle brands for a video game? The vehicles I'm trying to license are listed below most are from over 100 years ago, does anyone know where i could find information about this too?
Click to expand...
I hope you have a got a lot of money and spare time. Sounds like a thankless, almost impossible task.
 

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