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by nextaccountic 1022 days ago
> AI sentry towers on the US-Mexico border lends credence to Anduril's name from Lord of the Rings -- "the Flame of the West."

So they hijacked a name from Tolkien's works and the Tolkien estate did nothing about it?

They threatened to sue TSR for using "hobbit" in D&D in the 70s [0], which prompted D&D authors to change the name to "halfling" and later on change their lore a bit.

[0] https://www.museumofplay.org/blog/cease-and-desist-dont-mess...

1 comments

Same goes with Palantir. No idea how the estate chooses what to go after.

"Hobbit" is rather central to the Tolkien brand; Palantir and Anduril are essentially props, so it could be that these were seen as less important instances of name-theivery.