UPDATE: The LA Times has an editorial criticizing Marvel's use of it's "superhero" trademark (jointly held with DC since 1981) and points to a potential showdown with Sega as one way this trademark might go away.
UPDATE2: This story has legs right now - I just heard a bit on NPR about Hero Happy Hour's battle with Marvel and DC over the "superhero" trademark.
Just my opinion, but this apparent effort to trademark the term "superhero" would be ridiculous on its face (the term is so generic at this point it's not tied to a specific product - like kleenix or aspirin) but the fact that it's an attempt by the two largest publishers of comic books to the direct market, Marvel and DC, to co-own it as a trademark... well it just stinks of collusion, monopoly, anti-trust violations and again, just a completely ridiculous idea.
But Marvel and DC will throw their lawyers around and many folks will not want to risk fighting the battle. I agree with BoingBOING on this one - we should start referring to Marvel and DC characters as underwear perverts until Marvel and DC back off of this utterly stupid effort to trademark "superhero".
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Comments
technically speaking
actually, it's "Super Hero" not superhero. WWE also has trademarked "Superstars".
Not much better
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Xaviar Xerexes
I am a Modern Major Generality.
Dan Taylor's book, SUPER
Dan Taylor's book, SUPER HERO HAPPY HOUR got a cease and desist letter from them a couple years ago and he had to change his name.
I think I'll start a webcomic SUPER HERO and they can fucking BLOW me.
DJ Coffman
yirmumah.net
I suggest that Comixpedia
I suggest that Comixpedia registers the terms 'comic', 'comic book' and 'graphic novel'. And, why now, Comixpedia could also register the concept of sequential art, so you can ask for royalties to everybody doodling that peculiar type of art. Except me, of course.
We'll see who gets the last laugh!
This isn't a new effort.
This isn't a new effort. Marvel and DC jointly owne the trademarked name. They registered the term in the 1970s, as far as I know. Also, the related records at the USPTO website (http://www.uspto.gov/) are browsable by the general public, for those who care to take a look.
I remember when the news of
I remember when the news of this first hit the fan press back in the 70's. There was a big stink, then it blew over. But, yeah, this trademark has been in place for a long time.
Joey
www.webcomicsnation.com
Time of Existence Doesn't necessarily Equal Validity
Pepsi also owns a trademark on Uh-Huh! but I doubt it's a strong one...
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Xaviar Xerexes
I am a Modern Major Generality.
When I worked at
When I worked at freespeech.org, my boss made me file a trademark for the term "free speech."
Joey
www.webcomicsnation.com
I'd consider sanctioning you for that
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Xaviar Xerexes
I am a Modern Major Generality.
See, that one's really not
See, that one's really not all that ridiculous, since the trademark only applies to certain industries. It's just to prevent, for instance, Coke from coming out with a campaign that says "Uh huh!" or another other soft drink beverage companies. It wouldn't affect a comic book or whatever.
The problem I have with the Super Hero trademark is that is's so, so, so far after the fact...
How is "uh huh" after the
How is "uh huh" not after the fact too? It's not like Pepsi made up the phrase.
And is any consumer going to confuse Pepsi with Coke because they both use the phrase "uh huh" - sorry I don't buy that for a second.
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Xaviar Xerexes
I am a Modern Major Generality.
The reason I say it's after
The reason I say it's after the fact for DC & Marvel is that they were using the term "super hero" for a couple of decades before they decided to stick the TM on it.
Pepsi, on the other hand, decided to use "Uh Huh!" to promote their product, checked that no one else had used as a headline on soft drinks before, and used it with a TM by it to indicate they were calling dibs on its use in their market. The first instance that Uh Huh! appeared on their marketing materials, it had a TM by it. THAT's why it's not after the fact.
I work for a marketing agency on beer (shouldn't say whose), and if you come up with a little catch phrase that's too close to someone else's, you're out of luck. A trademark doesn't mean you coined the term yourself, or that you invented it. Not at all. You're just saying, "We used this term or slogan or whatever in this market first, and we're going to use it again. Back off."
It's weird, I know. But that's how it is. Or, at least the way I understand it. I'm not a lawyer.
Freedom of Expression
A couple of years ago media activist Kembrew McLeod registered a trademark for the term "Freedom of Expression." (If I knew how to add that little circle-r thing, I would.) When AT&T used the term in an ad campaign, he sent them a cease and desist claiming trademark infringement.
I wonder if you could register the term "-man"?
Diesel Sweeties Says It Better Then I Did
Today's DS is on this topic.
Now that I know it's a trademark that's been around for a looong time I guess the question should be whether it's been effectively challenged or whether everyone confronted with it has rolled over?
I still doubt very much that its valid or I suppose at best it might be what is sometimes referred to as a "thin" trademark (meaning very weak because it's close to generic).
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Xaviar Xerexes
I am a Modern Major Generality.
It's actually the strip
It's actually the strip after that one:
http://dieselsweeties.com/archive.php?s=1447
Du-oh
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Xaviar Xerexes
I am a Modern Major Generality.
Groo!
/GASP It's GROO the BLOGGER!!!
Fabricari - Sexy Robots and Violent Cyberpunk Comics
There was a panel about this
There was a panel about this very issue at San Diego ComicCon last year. They discussed how companies fear their trademarks becoming commonly used terms, because then they lose their trademark. It happened to escalator, aspirin, and a whole bunch of other former brand names.
This is exactly why photoshop released that big thing about not using their name is a verb, or saying "I photoshopped that" and always referring to their product as "The Adobe Photoshop Software"
If it becomes a common term, they'll lose their TM, and anyone else can make MSPhotoshop, or Macromedia Photoshop, or Apple Photoshop X or whatever
Also, UPS owns the trademark
Also, UPS owns the trademark for brown. That doesn't mean that you can't color a character in your comic brown, or paint your house brown, or the like.
Just that no other shipping service can use the color brown as their primary advertising color. Cuz if you saw a brown delivery truck comin' down the road, you'd assume it was UPS.
Going back to the original
Going back to the original article (shock, horror!), it seems to suggest that it's not the use of the phrase "super hero" which constitutes an infringement, merely the use of the words in a title.
I know that doesn't make the action by DC or Marvel any more sensible (or any less guilty of mindless bullying) but, at the end of the day, that's not such a big deal. If the article has got its facts straight, you can still presumably describe a non-DC/Marvel character as a super hero, you just can't create one called Captain Superhero.
And only large corporate publishers with more lawyers than imagination would want to do that any way ...
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