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Free Lightsaber Event Now Battling Lucasfilm's Lawyers (siliconbeat.com)
For eight years the arts collective Newmindspace had been staging free lightsaber battles, and in December they set a world record with 9,951 "combatants" simultaneously participating in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and Seattle. But then in January they received a letter from the copyright attorneys for the Star Wars franchise. "We immediately stopped using the words 'lightsaber,' 'Jedi,' 'Sith' and 'The Force,' " the group's co-founder told the technology blog of the San Jose Mercury News, saying they've still been "aggressively pursued" for the last three months. '''In March we received further communication stating 'The Light Battle Tour' and 'light sword' were still too close to their trademarks, and we moved to settle the dispute to avoid legal action." Their new solution involves referring to the weapons as "catblades", and they've re-branded their upcoming series of events (which begins on April 30 in San Jose) as the "Cats in Space Tour".
Star Trek conventions are licensed. All you guys have been duped by the marketing.
Analog Magazine cover, 1969
The rod “ something in appearance like a cross between the flame of a welding torch and the arc of a static electricity charge crackled from the end of the rod even as it burst from the end of the rod the discharge from Galyan’s rod met the discharge from Slothiel’s head on, and the two lines of white fire splashed harmlessly into an aurora of sparks"
"Well, then fire it up and show me what this..." (sigh)
From Wikipedia: In 1994, engineers at Apple Computer code-named the mid-level Power Macintosh 7100 "Carl Sagan" after the popular astronomer in the hope that Apple would make "billions and billions" with the sale of the computer. Apple used the name only internally, but Sagan was concerned that it would become a product endorsement and sent Apple a cease-and-desist letter. Apple complied, but its engineers retaliated by changing the internal codename to "BHA" for "Butt-Head Astronomer". Sagan then sued Apple for libel in federal court. In November 1995, Apple and Sagan reached an out-of-court settlement and Apple's office of trademarks and patents released a conciliatory statement that "Apple has always had great respect for Dr. Sagan. It was never Apple's intention to cause Dr. Sagan or his family any embarrassment or concern". Apple's third and final code name for the project was "LaW", short for "Lawyers are Wimps".
I think they should call these blades Litigation Exit Sabers or LitESabers for short.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
They have to protect themselves against trademark dilution, or they could lose the trademark. The more amenable solution would've been to give these guys a license to use those trademarks for their event for a paltry sum like $1. But I guess Disney wants all such events to require you pay the $100+ admission to Disneyland / Disneyworld.
And at this point, I don't think the franchise cares about any more advertising, free or not. It's pretty much reached the saturation point in mindshare.