Back in December, when Games Workshop first got M.C.A. Hogarth's Spots the Space Marine novels pulled from Amazon.com, claiming to own the trademark for "space marine," this seemed like a misunderstanding. Or an overzealous legal department. After all, the term "space marine" goes back to the 1930s and has been used by…

Who owns the term "space marine"? According to Wikipedia, the term was first used in 1932 in a story called "Captain Brink of the Space Marines" by Bob Olsen — but now, Warhammer 40K owner Games Workshop is claiming to have a trademark on the longstanding term.