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.

Comments

Ones and Zeroes

[a_nonamiss]

Reminds me of the old Onion article "Microsoft to patent zeroes, ones." Isn't the term "Super Hero" pretty generic?

Re:Is it really so crazy?

[Otter]

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?

If anything, "superhero" is more novel. "Superman" comes from Nietzsche, and the subsequent abuse of his terminology by the Nazis.

Re:Is it really so crazy?

[Vthornheart]

The shady part to me is that Marvel and DC claim co-ownership of it. Not to say that I'll point a stiff finger at them and accuse them of wrongdoing (though in an above post I poke some fun for the sake of humor), but I would like to know how they managed to "co-create" the term. Did they both happen to create it at the same time, or are they merely claiming co-creation as a way of allowing each other to have exclusive rights to an obvious term, at the detriment of smaller comic companies?

Perhaps someone has some insight into the history of the word "superhero" that might be helpful to this discussion?

Re:"Superhero" as a trade mark?

[dpille]

If you don't defend a trademark, you lose it.

Only kinda. The parent post clarifies a fair amount (as in steering you away from patent or copyright claims) but misses the right question:

Does the relevant class of potential consumers (that is, the comic-book-purchasing public) understand the term "SUPERHERO" to function as an indicator of source, origin, sponsorship, or affiliation when used in association with comic books, and do any consumers that have that understanding believe that the source/origin/sponsorship/affiliation is with DC and Marvel?

Let me summarize a bunch of what the irrelevant who-used-it-first posters are thinking: no freaking way.

This is retarded

[ShieldW0lf]

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.