One of the most interesting legal events to happen in gaming last year was when Bethesda, publisher of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, sued indie studio Mojang, creator of Minecraft, over their new game called Scrolls. The game was to be a trading card game for the PC. There was nothing remotely similar between Mojang’s scrolls and The Elder Scrolls. The issue was just a video game named Scrolls could cause confusion among players according to Bethesda’s lawyers at least.

It appears that the companies have settled, however, and we’re on our way to a world with both The Elder Scrolls and Mojang’s Scrolls being wholly intact. Notch of Mojang took to Twitter to announce the news.

AND!! We’ve settled with Bethesda! Yaaaay! <3

— Markus Persson (@notch) March 10, 2012

The settlement alone is news enough, but Notch has always been known for being extremely open on Twitter. He has also revealed the details of the settlement.

The settlement is that we give them the trademark, get to keep the name, and won’t make an elder scrolls competitor using the name.

— Markus Persson (@notch) March 10, 2012

The actual document I signed was like a billion pages, so at least we know a bunch of lawyers got rich. Good, wouldn’t want them to starve.

— Markus Persson (@notch) March 10, 2012

It does seem like the settlement is heavily in Bethesda’s favor, but that’s fine. They get to name their game Scrolls and Bethesda retains their trademark to the word Scrolls in video game land. While some may cry foul at the stipulation that Mojang can’t make a direct competitor to The Elder Scrolls; just think about it for a second and you’ll realize that Mojang will most likely never make a RPG. Even if they ever do make an RPG some day, it just doesn’t have to feature the word Scrolls in it and they’re fine.

While losing the name Scrolls wouldn’t be that big of a deal when it comes to trading card games, it would still be a blow to the indie game community. If Bethesda has successfully sued Mojang, it would set a precedent of large publishers bullying any indie developers that get too close to their established franchises.