Marvel and DC apparently "jointly owned" a trademark on the term "superhero"

[mikeymikec]

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/us-trademark-office-cancels-marvel-dcs-super-hero-marks-2024-09-26/

How the hell did joint ownership of a trademark even work? Why on earth did the US trademark office grant it in the first place?

Talk about corporations getting away with whatever they can because $$$!

 

[Fanatical Meat]

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/us-trademark-office-cancels-marvel-dcs-super-hero-marks-2024-09-26/

How the hell did joint ownership of a trademark even work? Why on earth did the US trademark office grant it in the first place?

Talk about corporations getting away with whatever they can because $$$!

Without being a law expert I suspect both companies knew the other would challenge it.
Also I would assume that is why it is being cancelled it is unenforceable sort of like what happened to Sony and the “Walkman”

 

[darkswordsman17]

Ugh, the company that got it done away with was trying to trademark Super Babies which is pretty much as generic as Super Heroes, so they're not exactly an angel.

I'm guessing there'd been some sort of agreement between the two, see also some of the other strangeness, like Marvel's use of mutant (I've heard it claimed multiple times that Marvel owns copyright/trademark for mutant but DuckDuckGo doesn't seem to provide much corroboration beyond one mention that they own the one for "New Mutants"). I think there's others as well.

 

[Zorba]

Ugh, the company that got it done away with was trying to trademark Super Babies which is pretty much as generic as Super Heroes, so they're not exactly an angel.

I'm guessing there'd been some sort of agreement between the two, see also some of the other strangeness, like Marvel's use of mutant (I've heard it claimed multiple times that Marvel owns copyright/trademark for mutant but DuckDuckGo doesn't seem to provide much corroboration beyond one mention that they own the one for "New Mutants"). I think there's others as well.

Trademark law is just fucked. DNC owned "Yosemite National Park" and currently owns "Space Shuttle Atlantis" and numerous of ergerous items they had nothing to do with the naming of

 

[pmv]

Still doesn't beat the "Lucasfilm/TSR trademarking Nazi" story. I mean, it's a myth, but I remember seeing those Indiana Jones cardboard figures that clearly had "TM" appended to the word "Nazi", so even if it was never in reality registered with the trademark office, they certainly gave the impression it had been.

Did TSR try and trademark the word, Nazi?

My first roleplaying game was Dungeons & Dragons, which at the time was published by TSR.

www.retroist.com

I mean, the explanation on that page is a bit hard to understand.

TSR did not try and trademark the word Nazi, instead, they were obligated in their relationship with Lucasfilm to list the trademark with the associated artwork that represents the Nazi character you will encounter in the game. It was a step they did with every figure included in IJ2 and other products.

The reason it was included on this little carboard cutout is that it was a cutout. A piece that could be separated from the rest of the game. So while it might seem redundant or ludicrous to see these trademarks on every little printed piece, it made sense for what was required.

Huh? No idea what that means, but you still ended up with this:

 

[trenchfoot]

I vaguely recall how a confectionary company or was it coffee IDK, they tried to trademark the word "Aloha" at one time.

 

[balloonshark]

"That's hot" belongs to Paris Hilton so I guess anything is possible with enough money and power.