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George Lucas Wields Light Saber
sarchasm writes: "Apparently George Lucas is suing
medical intsrument company Minrad for calling some of its new laser-based surgical devices Light Sabers. According to the suit: "Any deficiencies or faults in the quality of the defendant's goods are likely to reflect negatively upon, tarnish and seriously
injure the reputation which Lucasfilm has established for goods and services marketed under its Light Saber mark. This confusion is likely to result in loss of revenues to Lucasfilm and damage to its reputation."" I know that I myself have on occasion confused surgical cutting implements and little-plastic-flashlights-with-plastic-cones. If you go into surgery, and the surgeon has one of these, he's made the same mistake, and you'd better let him know!
Minrad's trademark on Light Saber (they have a live, valid trademark too) is for "G & S: Surgical instruments, namely syringes, trokars, biopsy needles, drills and cannulas adapted to be guided by an energy beam targeting and directing system".
On the other hand, Lucas Licensing's trademark on Light Saber is for "G & S: TOY SWORD".
This is merely a free publicity grab, and it worked.
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What makes this instrument a "sabre", as opposed to a knife, scalpel, sword, rapier, epee, scimitar, dagger, cutlass or stiletto? Do you really think they chose "sabre" at random from the list of dozens of synonyms? It's pretty obvious to me it was chosen because of the well known Star Wars light sabre.
His Lawyers: That's right *show* your anger George: oh. Ok. Luke: nooooooooooo.....
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I, unlike most of you, happen to be a Master Certifiied Jedi Knight (MCJK). If I went into surgery, which is of course not likely do to my incredible pain tolerance and fighting abilities, one of these 'light sabres' wouldn't just cut me, it would make me dissappear.
Therefore I fully support all action that George takes against these people, but please George, don't get too full of yourself.
Trademarks, unlike copyrights, must be defended vigorously or they are lost.
If he doesn't defend against this, it can mean that his ENTIRE CLAIM on "light saber" is lost. Some other company can then make duplicates of the toys and call them the same thing.
The wording used "loss of revenue" and "tarnish the reputation" is standard Trademark-Suit boilerplate and comes from the legal requirements to sue over this sort of thing.
It is silly, but that is the way trademark law works.
--
Charles E. Hill
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I'm unable to find any information at the Lucas Films Ltd. website, at the Minrad website, or anywhere else..
They're gonna rename it The Butthead-Director Scalpel.
Lucas has 1 trademark for the term "light saber", number 1126220. It's stated very carefully that it is a toy sword, and it is categorized under toys and recreation. He also has another trademark application, serial number 76072226, filed in June of 2000, for the "lightsaber" with the same categorization.
Minrad has one trademark application for the term "light saber", filed in April of 2000. It's categorized under medical equipment. Not anything remotely connected to toys.
This is why the trademark system has categories, and why two people can own the same trademark in different categories. Yeah, Lucas made the term popular. But unless some other toymaker uses the term, he shouldn't have a leg to stand on in a trademark dispute.
-Todd
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"The details of my life are quite inconsequential..."
Yes, it is a stupid name. They ought to call it the "Light Scalpel(tm)" or the "Light Knife(tm)" or something like that. I think the implied link to Star Wars' lightsabers would still be clear enough, but nobody would have to sue anybody, and it would sound a lot more appropriate in the ears of surgeons and patients.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
2001-07-27 00:53:54 Star Wars vs. a medical tool (science,patents) (rejected)
Edward Burr
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
Does anyone know if Lucas sued to stop the use of the term "Star Wars" to refer to the missile defense program? Even if it wasn't an official name, he could have tried to stop newspapers from calling it that in the same way Rollerblade writes tons of letters (or used to) to publications asking them to please use the phrase "in-line skates". Well, did he?
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I'd rather be lucky than good.
if a doctor operating on me used one of these light sabres and screwed up, i'd never see another star wars movie again! but as long as they're called something else, I'll have no problem with star wars..
er, wait a second..
when the rain comes, they run and hide their heads. they might as well be dead.
Apologies to the [majority of?] Ford F-150 buyers who DID buy an F-150 as a penis prostheic.
Imagine you're about to go in for major surgery and someone tells you the doctor's going to be using something called a light-saber. The mental image I get is of a guy standing about five feet away from me wielding a large white-hot laser sword, poking the tip around inside my chest. Is that really the image they want to project?
If these things take off, maybe they should make a new rule that you're not a true surgeon until you've constructed your own lightsaber.
Aparently LucasFilm isn't making enough money on 30 year old franchize, they have to go and sue a medical equipment maker for using the name 'Light Saber'.
Unbelievable. You'd think Lucasfilm would be honored that the words 'Light Saber' have infultrated so deeply into pop culture that a manufacturer of a completely serious preoduct would choose to refer to their product line using the mane of a ficticious weapon that appeared in several movies 30 years ago (and one more recently, but that interupts the flow of my rant on this subject).
Pathetic. I'm vary disappointed in LucasFilm for pursuing this issue at all. From a purely financial perspective, LucasFilm's Light Sabers are marketed to an entirely different demographic who would most likely be unaware of the existance of the medical instruments of the same name. LikewiseThe medical instrument manufacturer is is no way attempting to steal customers from LucasFilm by using the name, and if they were, I'd be truly frightened. I can see it now
Billy: I just got a Light Saber. It makes these neat noises and lights up, and only takes two AA batteries.
Joey: My daddy bought me a light saber too but mine has to be plugged into the wall bacause it's more powerful. It can cut through bone like butter. Wanna see?
Truly Frightning.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Heh, I'd love to have seen this...especially since Lucas has got to be pushing 300lbs these days. ;)
Matters size so much? So sure are you, mmm?
Does Lucas want to the name just in case they really make a light saber?
Click here or here.
So all the weenies who are gibbering on about how evil Lucas is for defending his trademark have to ask why Minrad should have exclusive trademark rights to the name 'Light Sabre'.
The trademark categories are not definitive, an application in one category does not foreclose a dilution claim in another category. In this case I think Lucas's lawyers have very good case. Minrad want to trade on the name recognition that Lucas has created. If they want to do that presumably the greedy bastard lawyers at Lucas will be happy to license the light sabre trademark to the greedy bastards running Minrad.
Lucas is almost certainly not directing this as a personal vendetta. His trademark lawyers are simply doing their job.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
...Lucas was weilding a lightsaber (Lightsaber and all variations are copyright LucasFilm LTD. All Rights reserved) in a fake "battle" with Star Wars Stunt Coordinator Nick Gillard in a pirate-like manner during the "Star Wars Connections" part of ComicCon.
D =1 1561
;)
Full report here (plaintext link for the goat paranoid):
http://cgi.theforce.net/theforce/tfn.cgi?storyI
Heh, I'd love to have seen this...especially since Lucas has got to be pushing 300lbs these days.
"Any deficiencies or faults in the quality of the defendant's goods are likely to reflect negatively upon, tarnish and seriously injure the reputation which Lucasfilm has established for goods and services marketed under its Light Saber mark. This confusion is likely to result in loss of revenues to Lucasfilm and damage to its reputation." That seems to describe Phantom Menace perfectly.
After all, I think we can all agree that the reason this company is calling it's product the "Light Saber" is because Lucas already popularized the term. They're riding the marketing and name-recognition "coattails" of lucasarts' Light Saber in order to promote and increase name recognition for their own product. It may seem petty, but lucasarts does have the right to defend a trademark they have invested millions of dollars in.
USA Intellectual Property Laws: 5 monkeys, 1 hour.
I'm the stranger...posting to
Weren't there a few cheesy science-fiction movies that pre-dated Star Wars that used light sabers? I can't quite recall which, but I recall light saber duels where they were more pencil thin... something along the lines of Stella Star Crash?
I believe Star Wars was 1977 and Star Crash was 1979, but I have a nagging memory I can't bring out into the open about one or more films predating Star Wars that used light sabers. (Parenthetically, I wonder when the script/story Copyright dates on both were, and if Star Crash had a light saber in the initial story or was it total rip off of Star Wars [which would make sense if you saw Star Crash]).
Can anyone old enough to qualify as Bantha fodder refresh my memory? Thanks.
p.s. I miss those Ray Harryhausen movies I saw when I was growing up. You were probably looking at Caroline Munro and forgot the rest of the movie.
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