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LucasFilm Sues Jedi Mind Over 'Jedi'

Posted by timothy on from the but-it's-my-religion-man dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Apparently the force is strong with LucasFilm's legal department, as they've sued the company Jedi Mind for trademark infringement and breach of contract, among other things. While LucasFilm doesn't actually own a trademark on 'Jedi,' it claims that its related marks are close enough, and that Jedi Mind had agreed last year to phase out the use of 'Jedi' in its name and product names."

4 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. Re:No brainer by magnus.ahlberg · · Score: 5, Informative

    Don't trademarks needed to be registered to be enforced?

    Actually no they do not. There are (at least) two ways to gain a trademark:

    • Registration, which is the safest one, since you know whether you have a trademark or not. This is usually marked with the (R)-symbol
    • Usage/Establishment (the legal term in Sweden is "inarbetad", I actually don't know the english equivalent), by consequently using a brand name in a certain way to market a product, service etc. you may gain trademark rights if the brand becomes part of the public awareness. Usually the TM-symbol is used to show that a company intends to use this as a trademark but it is not registered.

    Trademark law varies a little from country to country and please consider this a simplified explanation. IANALBIHADIL (I Am Not a Lawyer But I Hold a Degree in Law, there must be a shorter one for this - any suggestions?)

  2. Re:No brainer by afaik_ianal · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yes, you're absolutely right. According to Wikipedia, the non-registered one's are called "common law marks" in the US.

    IANAL either, AFAIK.

  3. Lucas is easy to deal with by Roblimo · · Score: 5, Informative

    George Lucas reputedly loves all those fan films and Lego Star Wars characters. At the same time, the Lucas companies must sue trademark infringers now and then if they want to retain their trademarks.

    But, as I learned some years ago while defusing a DMCA complaint against a SourceForge project that had some Lucas IP in it, if you *ask Lucasfilm politely* for permission to use their trademarks, they'll probably give it to you -- and probably won't want any money if you're a small-timer.

  4. Registered trademarks vs. common law trademarks by fair+use · · Score: 3, Informative

    The original post confuses trademark law.

    Under common law, all you have to do get trademark rights is to use a particular mark, although whether you can actually prevent any one else from using the mark depends on a lot of factors, e.g., your mark should be distinctive and you should be the first to use it for a particular type of product.

    In addition to any common law rights, you can also get a federal trademark registration, which gives you the right to use the circle R symbol (note that it is against the law to use the circle R symbol unless you have a federal registration). Having a federal registration gives you some advantages over a common law trademark: (1) you get a presumption that you use the mark nationwide (as opposed to a particular geographic region), and (2) you can sue in federal court if someone infringes your trademark.

    Even if you have a federal registration, you only have rights to a mark if you actually use it. If you get a federal registration on a mark, but stop using it, then that mark becomes available for someone else to use.

    Trademark law is very different from patent/copyright law and serves a much clearer purpose -- people need to know the real source of the products they buy.