Good Lord, the absurd extreme would be Newport News Shipbuilding or Electric Boat charging for royalties on any ship they built getting mentioned in the Harpoon Database. That would convince me that there is a subset of lawyers involved - feminazis bent on eliminating "war toys".
That's it - A Harpoon scenario made up of a campaign on the Kola Peninsula, Blue ORBAT being a collection of My Little Pony units.
Isn't this the tip of the iceberg? I mean, if we are going to contiue to treat information as property?
If an idea can be property, there's no end to the insanity that's possible. Suppose I make up a new name no one has ever used before. Can I then copyright it, so that anyone who wants to name a child that owes me?
Many other examples have been posted already.
"IP" has the potential to stifle a culture's creativity to a frightening degree . . .