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Marvel and DC Enforce "Superhero" Trademark
An anonymous reader writes "GeekPunk is announcing that their flagship comic book title featuring superheroes patronizing their favorite bar & grill during their off-hours will now be entitled Hero Happy Hour beginning with the fifth issue of the ongoing series.
According to creator Dan Taylor, "The decision to change the title was brought upon by the fact that we received a letter from the trademark counsel to 'the two big comic book companies' claiming that they are the joint owners of the trademark 'SUPER HEROES' and variations thereof."
" Read the recent boingboing post for more background as well.
Reminds me of the old Onion article "Microsoft to patent zeroes, ones." Isn't the term "Super Hero" pretty generic?
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
Before this thread is consumed by non-lawyers editorializing about what a legal travesty this is, let me first put forth a question: If this argument was about the term "Superman" instead of "Superhero," would it be any less absurd? I mean, surely we'll all agree that "Superman" is a clearly trademarkable name, and has been capitalized on by its creators for decades. But isn't the coined word "Superman" just as generic as the coined word "Superhero?" Aren't they both merely the concatenation of two relatively common words in the English language?
Let's just admit that they've created something new, and it's not entirely unreasonable for them to wish to protect their exclusive use of their creations.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
Seriously? What's next, Disney copyrighting antropomorphic animals?
The concept of superheros goes back to Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Back then, they were deified, but since that's no longer really an option with monotheistic religions, what we have now is superheroes. They have godlike powers (can lift heavy things, can fly, can see through stuff, can forsee the future, and so on), they interfere with the human world and try to make things "right", in other words, they function like the gods of old times.
Sometimes they're even "human" enough to have some of the worse traits of ancient gods. Makes them less godly and more credible.
But copyrighting the very idea of having entities that are capable of executing extraordinary feats, I guess the church might have problems accepting that their angels are on the verge of being (c) Marvel as well.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And I'll probably get sued for this moment of lamentation...
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=superhero
So they went after a bar, but not the dictionaries that list the incredibly commonly used word. Why? Because the bar makes money off the word? So do dictionary companies.
The dictionary is where we go for Scrabble help. It's the definitive answer to the question, "Is that a word?" Not a group of words or made-up words -- singular items of the language. They should not be subject to trademark, especially not in a completely unrelated business sector.
Also, trademarks must be enforced if they are to be kept. Marvel and DC didn't enforce it when it showed up in the dictionary. Unless they really want to remove it from the general lexicon, they should lose this trademark. Hell, they should lose this trademark period!
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
Faster than everybody else! Stronger than the weak! Able to leap to conclusions in a single bound! Sworn enemy of the dreaded RIAA! Destroyer of the Gates of hell! I'd have been a superhero if I weren't deathly afraid of lawsuits.....and girls :p
He who would be a man, must be a nonconformist. -- Emerson
Marvel and/or DC must feel that this comic is stealing some of their market, or they wouldn't have bothered with this. I don't know what they were worried about though, since I read a fair number of comics, and I'd never even heard of Super Hero Happy Hour.
Of course, I have now . . . .
Where you been the last few dozen, 20, 30, 40 years? Trademark laws exist to protect "intellectualy property" so the owner can profit. Way it is, way its been. News? No. Right? No. Life moves on.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Um.
None of those car companies have a trademark on the term "car".
There is, however, a trademark on the term "superhero".
So your post, while moderated rather positively, is quite incorrect in drawing some comparison between the two.
These words have become commonly used household terms now. I think the trademarks should no longer apply. Really... if someone wants to make a fan-flic called Superman 10, then why not? It's not like, by the time your product is a household word, you haven't made much money yet.
It's true that the best trademarks are made up words (like Microsoft (R) or Unix (R)). Then there is no crossover with regular usage -- your mark ONLY identifies your brand to anybody in any context. But that does not mean that a real English word cannot be a trademark. It depends on your market segment. Apple would not be allowable as a trademark for a brand of shiny red fruit, but it is perfectly workable as a trademark for a brand of computer. The operative question is whether it is identifiable to a specific brand by the consumer. The cross-licensing between DC and Marvel would appear to defeat that in this specific case. If it's that important to somebody, let him tell a jury and see what they think.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Seriously, this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. A trademark is a mark of trade. It's so you know who you're dealing with. If you buy Kleenex (TM), you know you're getting it from the same organization you did last time.
So if you hear "Super Hero Comic", do you know which organization you're dealing with? No, you don't. It could be either of two competing organizations that produced it. So it's not a trademark, it's just two big companies trying to keep competitors out. This should not be permitted.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Here's my line of thinking when I posed that question:
Ok, this guy's trying to refute this guy who claims that Marvel didn't coin the term "Superhero." However, all he says is that Superman was created in 1938. This doesn't directly refute the claim because "Superman" isn't the same as "Superhero". Now a couple of things are possible here:
1) He knows that they called him a superhero, but failed to mention it in his post. In this case, asking the question points out that this piece of information which is vital to connecting the argument was missing, which a) gives me the answer without any expended effort searching and b) might help that poster make better and more informative posts in the future, or
2) He doesn't know or knows that Superman wasn't called a superhero, at which point my question becomes a rhetorical refutation of his post. In this instance, I care less about the actual answer and more about pointing out the mistake in the post, as is fairly common on Slashdot anyway, as well as deflecting another attempt to post a true fact in order to create the impression that some other implication is true.
Ultimately, while I'm mildly curious to know whether or not Superman was called a superhero pre-1942, my curiousity doesn't extend to searching for some piece of evidence on the Internet to support that claim. You made the assertion without the key fact that makes it true, so it's not all that unreasonable to ask you to back up your implied claim. So if conversation is stimulated by my question and I happen to find out the answer, great. If not, well frankly, my life isn't going to be less complete.
I think it goes both ways actually. Both the consumer and the producer have a vested interest in ensuring that the consumer is buying what he thinks he is buying. The protection of trademarks works toward that goal. It means only the Coca-cola company can sell a product bestowed with the treasured Coke label (unless they give someone else express permission). And it means that the consumer who buys his beloved Coke can be confident he is purchasing it from the Coca-cola company whose product he has come to trust. (Replace "Coca-cola" and "Coke" with your favorite soda company and soda name, respectively, for full effect.)
To spell it out.... This protection benefits the producer, in that other companies aren legally prevented from stealing away their customers under false pretenses (as opposed to stealing them away by offering better product). But it also benefits the consumer, in that they can't be fooled into thinking they're buying a particular product they desire, but in reality be sold a competing product they have no interest in (even though it may, in reality, be the better product).
Assuming for the sake of argument that D.C. and Marvel did invent the term "superhero", it has obviously lost its exclusivity to these companies in common usage. Much like Zipper and Asprin, which began life as trademarks but became "ordinary" words through usage and were properly ruled to be such. If the legal system still worked, I would suggest other comic publishers ignore D.C./Marvel's attempt to abuse trademark law to surpress competition. But since these days the court could (ignoring the relevent precident) rule in favor of D.C./Marvel . . .