Disney Withdraws Trademark App On Seal Team 6
from the seal-team-7? dept
Disney's attempt to trademark "Seal Team 6," two days after SEAL Team 6 got bin Laden, made the national news as an example of trademark law gone insane. It took a of couple weeks, but Disney came to its senses, realized that it was only going to dig itself in a deeper and deeper hole pursuing this, and has now withdrawn the application. Maybe next time, Disney lawyers will think twice before trying to trademark something so well known.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: seal team six, trademark
Companies: disney
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As between Disney and the USN filing trademark applications, I am much more troubled by what the USN is or may be doing than I am about Disney.
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I disagree. If Disney didn't think it could do this, it wouldn't have. It reflects poorly on trademark law.
Separately, I find it odd that you always seem to state that any particular awful action is merely an indication of those doing it, and simply refuse to connect the dots. When we point to these sorts of things happening all the time, it seems pretty obvious to anyone paying attention that the problem is the system, not those using it.
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The system is rotten, and makes these companies behave in rotten ways. Of course these same companies lobbied to make the system rotten in the first place. So we can still blame them.
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Frankly, I had expected you to comment on what the USN is/was attempting to do. The USG, and particularly the military, does not have any competitors in the classic sense of the word, except, perhaps, internal competition such as aviation within each of the services. The same is true of virtually every other function within the federal government. If the USN response is proper under law, then why not have other federal groups/agencies/etc. trademark their logos, slogans, and other source identifying indicia?
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Re: Speaking of tradement madness, did you ask Apple for permission to use the word "App" in the post title?
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The Seals, as well as the Marines, are both owned by the Navy.
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Asshattery from them should be expected at this point.
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Just trademark 'Seal Team Six'
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Or trademark Seal team 5, from under seige.
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Re: Or trademark Seal team 5, from under seige.
Meh, no biggie. I hear if you just feed a couple of alka-seltzers to him, he 'splodes.
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Sounds like a Government Make Work program...
I can see the reasoning, this will provide much work for all those bored government employees when they aren't too busy spying on models or listening in on private conversations.
It would only take one employee a couple hours to propose an update that said.... "Government Agencies, Names, Acronyms, Internal Designations, and any related nomenclature are not subject to Trademark, Copyright, or Patenting".
Many hours of useless work for many government workers compared to a few hours for one worker..... You know which one they are going to go with
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