Would A Moron In A Hurry Confuse R2D2 With An Ad Platform? No? But George Lucas Would...

from the these-are-not-the-droids-you're-looking-for dept

Back when the Motorola Droid phone first came out, based on Google's Android platform, stories started coming out about how Motorola had to pay George Lucas to license his "droid" trademark. That didn't make much sense to me -- after all, trademarks are only supposed to be for specific product areas where there's actual use in commerce. However, in looking through the USPTO database, I came across trademark 77845682, filed by LucasFilm just last year for "Droid," covering "wireless communications devices, namely, mobile phones, cell phones, hand held personal computers..." and more. Interesting timing, no? I am curious, though, as to exactly what "use in commerce" there is for LucasFilm?

Either way, we've certainly seen that Lucas and his trademark attorneys have been unnecessarily aggressive lately, going after Wicked Lasers and the company Jedi Mind (despite not having a registered trademark on "jedi" or "jedi mind"). And, apparently, they're just going to keep at it. Matt Cooper, the founder of the startup Addroid wrote in to let us know that he's the latest recipient of a Lucas nastygram:

"The name of my startup is Addroid. It's an HTML5 ad serving platform. When trying to come up with a name I thought it should have the word "ad" in it. Also, it's digital advertising so I thought: computers, robots, androids...wait -- Addroid. That's kinda cool.

This week the law firm representing George Lucas informed me that Addroid will lead to customer confusion. I get that George Lucas owns the word "droid" up and down. But I feel Addroid is simply a made up word. I really thought if I made up a word I'd be cool. The name of the company isn't Ad Droid (two words). I don't believe that anyone interested in my B2B ad platform would for a second think that C3P0 and R2D2 are going to come popping out of the browser.

I have a decent amount of money already invested in the domain and branding. I have 10 days to reply. I don't really know what to do.

That's my story.

It seems that Matt has also contacted some others. Anyway, as ridiculous as it is to think there would be any confusion here (I'd guess that Google/Android have a better trademark claim here, if anyone does), it's probably going to be ridiculously expensive for Matt to fight it, should Lucas go past the C&D stage. Of course, he could just follow Wicked Laser's lead and auction off the C&D to generate extra attention and hope that LucasFilm backs down. It also does seem worth noting that Matt appears to have registered Addroid.com back in 2005 -- way before LucasFilm applied for the mobile services trademark and well before "Android" was a well known mobile operating system.

Filed Under: droid, george lucas, trademark
Companies: addroid, lucasfilm

LucasFilm Skips The Jedi Mind Trick And Just Straight Up Sues 'Jedi Mind'

from the the-force-is-strong-with-this-one dept

Fresh off its legal lightsaber battle with Wicked Lasers, LucasFilm's legal department has moved on to pulling a Jedi Mind trick... literally. David Canton points us to the news that LucasFilm has filed a lawsuit against a Nevada company called Jedi Mind. Not surprisingly, they're not particularly happy with the name, and are charging the company with trademark infringement, false designation of origin, trademark dilution, breach of contract and unfair competition (under California's law). Apparently, a Jedi Mind is no match for a good legal department... Of course, this case seems a lot stronger than the lightsaber one, and my guess is that Jedi Mind is going to have to backdown quickly, or it's going to lose pretty badly. Even auctioning off the lawsuit papers probably won't help...

THREsq has a lot more details on the lawsuit, noting that after receiving a cease & desist from LucasFilm's lawyers last year, Jedi Mind had agreed to phase out the use of the name. The lawsuit (and the breach of contract claim) comes from its failure to do so. The other interesting point: Lucas doesn't actually hold a trademark on "Jedi" or "Jedi Mind." It does hold trademarks on Jedi Knight, Jedi Power Battles and Jedi Training Academy but that's not quite the same thing... Still, the company claims that's enough to wield the force over Jedi Mind.

Filed Under: jedi, jedi mind, trademark
Companies: jedi mind, lucasfilm

The Force Is Strong In Public Ridicule: Lucas Backs Down From Threats Against Wicked Lasers

from the your-skills-are-now-complete dept

A month ago, we covered the news that Lucasfilm was threatening Wicked Lasers over one of their recent lasers. The problem wasn't anything the company had done specifically, but the fact that various blogs, in talking about the laser, had compared it to the infamous lightsaber from Star Wars. That didn't make much sense. It's not like if you make a fictional product that you get control over anything remotely like it in the real world. Lucasfilm was widely ridiculed for the C&D, and Wicked Lasers ended up auctioning off the C&D to raise funds for a legal fight. However, after seeing all the negative publicity, Lucasfilm backed down, amusingly pretending that Wicked Lasers had helped set the record straight:

"We are aware that, during this time you have made several statements to the media insisting that your product is not intended to resemble a lightsaber and is not marketed by your company as either a lightsaber or as having any connection with 'Star Wars' or Lucasfilm."

Yes, but it's also true that before the media storm Wicked Lasers still hadn't made any statements suggesting its laser resembled a lightsaber, and it was never marketed as being a lightsaber or having any connection to Star Wars or Lucasfilm. This is just Lucasfilm's attempt at gracefully admitting it made a mistake, while pretending something had "changed." Either way, chalk one up for public ridicule getting a company to back down on a questionable legal attack.

Filed Under: lasers, lightsabers, trademark
Companies: lucasfilm, wicked lasers

One Way To Deal With A Cease & Desist: Wicked Lasers Auctioning Off LucasFilm C&D

from the will-they-get-a-C&D-for-that-too? dept

We recently wrote about the cease & desist letter that LucasFilm sent Wicked Lasers for making a laser that various blogs (not Wicked Lasers itself) compared to a light saber. Wicked Lasers has apparently responded by doing the only reasonable thing: it's auctioning the cease & desist off on eBay. You can bid on it here. How nice would it be if it became a trend to auction off bogus cease and desist letters?

Filed Under: auctioning, cease and desist
Companies: lucasfilm, wicked lasers

Storm Trooper Copyright Lawsuit Back On In the UK

from the in-a-galaxy-far,-far-away dept

Last year we wrote about a copyright fight between George Lucas/Lucasfilm and Andrew Ainsworth, the guy who created the original costumes for the storm troopers in Star Wars. Ainsworth believes that he has every right to now sell storm trooper costumes. Lucas, and his licensing empire, feel otherwise. It got to the ridiculous level of Ainsworth claiming that Lucas actually owed him money, for all the free merchandising Ainsworth has done for the various Star Wars movies by selling his costumes. Eventually, the High Court in the UK tossed out Lucas' claims, saying that the costumes were not works of art and not covered by copyright in the UK. It did note that there may have been copyright infringement in the US, but said that Ainsworth was immune from a US court ruling on the subject since his US sales were not that big.

Apparently, Lucasfilm isn't happy about this and is appealing the ruling, claiming that the storm trooper costumes are indeed works of art, like sculptures. The whole thing, frankly, seems like a waste of time. Is it really that big of a concern to Lucasfilm if the guy who created the original costumes is selling them himself?

Filed Under: andrew ainsworth, copyright, george lucas, storm troopers, uk
Companies: lucasfilm