Well. I'm not sure what to think about this. Bethesda is an awesome company, and Interplay was always crap. (They DID publish great game, however they were god awful at making them)
And Interplay didn't go through with their deal, so Bethesda does have the right to sue them.

Didn't think about the whole Fallout Tactics vs Fallout 3 as the trilogy situation with regards to people who don't have a clue about the previous games. Hrm, this whole mess has me thinking about getting all the Fallouts just to spite Bethesda hehe. Kinda kicking myself now as well that I didn't do it when GOG were doing the 2 for 1 deal!

Which, allegedly, never happened. Given how it's clear Interplay screwed themselves out of the MMO deal by sitting on it for 2 years, this allegation looks like it's going to prove valid too.
You're right that they're somewhat in rights limbo between the two. But Bethesda call the shots... or were meant to be able to.
Ultimately, I think Bethesda will be walking away with full rights to those games too. Which, hopefully, will prove better for all concerned than them being left in Interplay's hands. Hopefully.

Much as I'd like to join the judgement call-makers in this thread, I feel that some critical information is missing...
1. How are profits from the sales of the old Fallout games being distributed?
2. How are profits from the sales of the old Fallout games SUPPOSED to be distributed?
3. Just what has Interplay done with the proposed Fallout MMOG?
4. Would Bethesda continue selling the old Fallout Games on DD sites if it had complete control over the distibution and sales? (I'd like to think so. The Bethesda Staff seem to be cool guys, from what I've seen of them...)
...but most of this information won't become available until the suit is concluded. Oh well... time to sit back and watch the fireworks...
I'm not especially concerned about the outcome, myself, because I still own a box set of the Fallout games.

This much we know at least. Interplay signed a developer to begin work on the MMO after the deadline for commencement of large scale development and acquiring funding for the project had already passed.
I don't know if they managed to secure funding. It seems not. After all, they'd need something to show investors, which they couldn't have had.
They failed to begin development for 2 years following their acquisition of the rights to produce the MMO. This resulted in them failing to even start any kind of development before the lawsuit was filed. Indeed, they didn't even have a developer at that point.
So that's a clear cut breach of contract.
The distribution of old IP is too new a lawsuit for any real details to have emerged from.

Bethesda needs to get the fuck out.
"...consumers have become confused between the makers of the pre-existing Fallout games and Bethesda's more recent Fallout 3 -- a situation that Bethesda wanted to avoid."
Does anyone see the message here? They're apparently insulted by the confusion? even after they named their own ode to the series Fallout fucking Three.
"Irreparable harm." Seriously?

Guess I'll be completing my collection with tactics instead of getting fallout 3 for my ps3 while I still can :P
Maybe it is all justified but I can't help getting pissed about this kind of stuff.
I feel that these old games are part of our culture and need to be available to the public at a fair price exactly as offered by gog now. The people who made the stuff have already been payed several times over and moved on but still some greedy corporation is trying to interfere because they think we are confused about what we should be spending our time and cash on.
Disgusting.

It is my understanding that the games on GoG are not being sold as "Fallout Trilogy" but individually, which is allowable.
Fallout Trilogy is a recent compilation which is also available through retail.
So I would not expect GoG to be a problem to Bethesda, but given there is court action based on the trilogy pack, the consequences of victory might leave things dicey.

Wooooiiieeeee thank god for hard copy media :D
Incidentally, several places on the Internet have started selling more copies of the Fallout trilogy (by trilogy, I mean 1, 2 and Tactics), so you might want to look over there instead if you haven't got Fallout yet.

Some of the copies of "Fallout Trilogy" I've seen in stores have a sub-title
"Contains Fallout 1, 2 & 3!"
The small print on the back being that #3 is fallout tactics. Though this was on the shelves before Bethesda's Fallout 3. I can see why (some) people would be confused, but when it sells for $20AU or so and F3 alone for $80AU... You would hope people would read a bit more.

Thats blatant false advertising, if that's the case everywhere then I'm right behind the lawsuit

Absolutely on false advertising. The only thing that I'm letting them off a little for is that it was out before F3 (And possibly before the interplay-bethesda deal was announced).
I'm trying to find an image of the box art now, I don't think the people at "Harvey Norman" (the last place I saw it) would appreciate me going down with a camera and taking photos of their stock :). Just for any date of references that should be on it.
It's basically the fallout-tactics background art with new titles/headers, but the way it is sold is more of an infringement than just using 'trilogy'.

Without seeing a copy of the actual paperwork signed, its hard to actually argue one side or another, since you are basically hearing only a tiny bit of it. However, if Interplay did not honor their contract and did something against what they should have done, then Bethesda has every right to sue.
On a side note, am I the only person in the world who actually likes Bethesda and Fallout 3? :/

I love Fallout 3 but if the box is as Ois described, then its gross misrepresentation that should in fact be illegal under Australian law. Fallout Tactics was not, is not and never was described as Fallout 3

There are some gems of evil, err, I mean real original Fallout fans here...
So no you aren't. But there is a small extremelly vocal minority of Fallout fans bitching whenever something changes here.