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to its senses, realized that it was only going to dig itself in a deeper and deeper hole pursuing this, and has now withdrawn the application.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.
Hide this

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.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: seal team six, trademark
Companies: disney


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • icon
    crade (profile), 26 May 2011 @ 4:02pm

    Why would they think twice when they can just give it a try and withdraw if it someone happens to notice?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 26 May 2011 @ 4:23pm

    What Disney was attempting to do reflects not a whit on trademark law. It reflects only on Disney.

    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.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 26 May 2011 @ 4:45pm

      Re:

      It's a good thing Disney doesn't use any of its influence on the political class. Could you just imagine?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Mike Masnick (profile), 26 May 2011 @ 9:52pm

      Re:

      What Disney was attempting to do reflects not a whit on trademark law. It reflects only on Disney.

      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.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        FuzzyDuck, 27 May 2011 @ 1:18am

        Re: Re:

        The problem is indeed the system, in a grab what you can system of monopoly rights distributions, you have to grab what you can before others do or you'll loose out to the "competition". In fact you could state that it's a company's duty to its shareholders to participate in this grab fest.

        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.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 27 May 2011 @ 8:07am

        Re: Re:

        We will have to agree to disagree.

        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?

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    theangryintern (profile), 26 May 2011 @ 5:11pm

    What's funny is they're not even called Seal Team 6 anymore, and haven't been since the late 80s

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Bnesaladur (profile), 26 May 2011 @ 5:56pm

      Re:

      Still, that fact that they are still known widely as Seal Team 6 means that the trademark is already implied. Attempting to file for a trademark on something to which a implied trademark already exists is pretty low.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 26 May 2011 @ 6:39pm

      Re:

      quick! copyright DevGru 6!

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    JMT, 26 May 2011 @ 5:22pm

    Speaking of tradement madness, did you ask Apple for permission to use the word "App" in the post title?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 26 May 2011 @ 5:40pm

      Re: Speaking of tradement madness, did you ask Apple for permission to use the word "App" in the post title?

      That’s not a trademark infringement until the app is stored.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 26 May 2011 @ 5:49pm

      Re:

      There's an app for that.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      JMT, 26 May 2011 @ 8:49pm

      Re:

      Tradement? WTF? I meant trademark of course...

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    abc gum, 26 May 2011 @ 6:34pm

    Why do the Marines not own the trademark, they should have dibs.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Dementia (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 11:53am

      Re:

      Umm, NAVY Seals, not Marine Seals. Marines have Force Recon. Army has Special Forces, Ranges, and Delta Force, and the Airforce has Combat Controllers and Pararescue. Any other questions about special ops?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    The Groove Tiger (profile), 26 May 2011 @ 6:39pm

    Does that mean that Team Seal: Revenge of the Hoop-Jumping Orca animated movie is now off the table?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Wolfy, 26 May 2011 @ 7:07pm

    abc gum,

    The Seals, as well as the Marines, are both owned by the Navy.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 27 May 2011 @ 12:41am

    Remember thst disney is the same group who made a killing off building off other's works while throwing a fit if anyone tried the same with disney's work.

    Asshattery from them should be expected at this point.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    darryl, 27 May 2011 @ 1:41am

    Just trademark 'Seal Team Six'

    problem solved.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    darryl, 27 May 2011 @ 1:46am

    Or trademark Seal team 5, from under seige.

    They might try to tradement Seal Team 5, but they might get Steven Seagull after you, after all he was from sean team 5 in the movie 'under seige'

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Dark Helmet (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 7:34am

      Re: Or trademark Seal team 5, from under seige.

      "but they might get Steven Seagull after you"

      Meh, no biggie. I hear if you just feed a couple of alka-seltzers to him, he 'splodes.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    anymouse (profile), 27 May 2011 @ 10:33am

    Sounds like a Government Make Work program...

    So now every Government Agency is supposed to waste time, effort, and money to 'trademark', 'copyright' and 'patent' their agencies name to protect it?

    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

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.