It Begins: Some Comic Conventions Refusing To Fold After San Diego Comic-Con Gets Its Trademark Win

from the the-war dept

After following the saga of what seemed like a truly misguided lawsuit brought by the San Diego Comic-Con against the company putting on the Salt Lake ComiCon, the whole thing culminated in the SDCC getting a win in the courtroom. One of the reasons this verdict threw many, including this writer, for a loop is that the defendant in the case made the argument that the SDCC had allowed the term "comic con" to become generic, an argument buttressed by the reality of there being roughly a zillion comic conventions using the term across America. Despite the SLCC's public discussions about appealing the decision and the fact that proceedings are already underway to cancel the SDCC's trademark entirely, much of the media speculation centered around what those zillion other conventions would do in reaction to the verdict.

It was a question that seemingly made sense, but the actual reaction by at least some conventions should have been plainly predictable. And, indeed, now there are some conventions willing to come out and publicly say they aren't going to change a damned thing based on this one verdict.

Yakima’s Central City Comic Con will hold off on a name change after one of the nation’s largest comic conventions won a trademark lawsuit. Yakima’s comic convention started in 2015, and is one of more than 100 conventions that uses “Comic Con” in their names.

“I don’t know how you can trademark two words that are common,” said Jamie Burns, Central City Comic Con events coordinator.

She said Yakima’s convention organizers are taking a wait-and-see attitude, watching to see whether the Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle or Portland’s Rose City Comic Con change their names in response.

Rose City, of course, wouldn't need to change its name as it somewhat infamously and more conveniently decided to partner with the San Diego Comic-Con in the middle of the whole trademark trial, but the larger point remains. The war was not the trademark trial. That was merely the opening battle. To win this war, that the SDCC decided to start for no conceivable reason, it will need to pepper the country with lawsuits against a hundred or so comic conventions, hopefully winning more than it loses and hopefully getting more than $20k a pop, which is what it earned from the three-year campaign against SLCC. All the while, mind you, it must also hope its "comic-con" trademark isn't suddenly cancelled out from underneath it by a USPTO that might finally realize the term is both generic and descriptive.

That's quite a hill to climb and must look more like Waterloo than Normandy.

Filed Under: comic con, comicon, trademark
Companies: central city comic con, san diego comic con

Court Allows San Diego Comic-Con's Suit Against The Salt Lake City Comic Con To Move Forward

from the groan dept

A few months ago, we alerted our readers that a trademark dispute between the San Diego Comic-Con and a company producing a Salt Lake City Comic Con, originally filed in 2014, was still going on. In fact, the district court hearing the case just recently ruled on several motions from both parties, including motions for judicial notice (essentially having the court affirm basic facts about the case), motions to exclude expert testimony, and motions for summary judgement. On the face of it, the news is mostly bad for the Salt Lake City convention, with nearly every ruling coming down against it. However, digging into the ruling itself, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

As for the bad news, it seems to be mostly of the Salt Lake City Comic Con's own making, or the making of its legal team. The court points out that the defendant's lawyers motion and defenses are all over the place, in some places arguing for generecide -- or that "comic con" has become a generic term -- while in others arguing that "comic con" is generic ab initio -- or that the term was generic even prior to San Diego Comic-Con's initial use of it. It's an important distinction for a couple of reasons, including that the defenses SLC has stated it will make revolve around genericide, yet much of the evidence in the motions in this ruling revolve around generic ab initio and, more importantly, the 9th Circuit doesn't have any precedent or acknowledgement of generic ad initio as a matter of law, and this district court is governed by 9th Circuit precedent.

Unfortunately for Defendants, the Ninth Circuit has not recognized a genericness ab initio theory of defense. Instead, the Ninth Circuit very clearly states that there are only five categories of trademarks: (1) generic; (2) descriptive; (3) suggestive; (4) arbitrary; and (5) fanciful. KP Permanent Make-Up, Inc. v. Lasting Impression I, Inc., 408 F.3d 596, 602 (9th Cir. 2005). No case law from this circuit separates genericness into two different types nor have Defendants provided the Court with Ninth Circuit precedent that adopts their arguments. Accordingly, as there is no dispositive basis or Ninth Circuit jurisprudence to accept an argument revolving around a generic ab initio defense, the Court GRANTS Plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment on this contention.

So, yeah, not a real good look on the part of the SLC's legal team. Later in the ruling, the court goes on to rule against SLC's motion for summary judgement, which was essentially asking the court to rule that "comic con" is now a generic term. The court declined to do so, moving the case forward. But it's important to note that the court, in a ruling that otherwise dealt somewhat harshly with SLC's lawyers, makes a point of noting that it did not deny the motion because Salt Lake City doesn't have the facts on its side. Instead, the court notes that in motions like this, favorable weight is generally given both to the plaintiff and to any holder of a valid trademark (the plaintiff again, in this case), and that's what precludes the court from granting a summary judgement. The ruling goes on to state:

After a careful review of the parties’ moving papers, the applicable law, and the evidence on the record, the Court finds that Defendants have satisfied their burden of demonstrating a genuine issue of material fact as to genericide. “Federal courts [] view usage of [a] term by competitors in the industry as strong evidence of how the public perceives them.” Classic Foods Int’l Corp. v. Kettle Foods, Inc., 468 F. Supp. 2d 1181, 1190 (C.D. Cal. 2007). “The more members of the public see a term used by competitors in the field, the less likely they will be to identify the term with one particular producer.” Id. Here, Defendants produce evidence that demonstrates that “comic cons” are held in nearly every state of the United States including New York Comic Con, Amazing Arizona Comic Con, Emerald City Comic Con, and Tampa Bay Comic Con. (Doc. No. 223-1 at 39, 101, 129, 160.) This evidence of over 100 competitors using the unhyphenated form of Plaintiff’s trademark strongly suggests that the mark is generic. Consequently, this is persuasive evidence of genericide. See CG Roxane LLC v. Fiji Water Co. LLC, 569 F. Supp. 2d 1019, 1027 (N.D. Cal. 2008) (holding that a competitors use of a mark is compelling evidence of genericness as it reflects how the public identifies the term).

Due to that, the court denied San Diego Comic-Con's motion to deny SLC that defense. So, when the trial moves forward now, it should be clear exactly what the defense by Salt Lake City will be: generecide. Given this ruling's opinion of the facts on that question, it appears that defense will be quite strong.

It's something of a canary in the coal mine for the SDCC, in other words. I somewhat expect we'll now hear more talks of a settlement before this goes much further.

Filed Under: comic con, comiccon, dan farr, salt lake city, san diego, trademark
Companies: salt lake comic con, san diego comic con

United Says TSA Wants All Comic Con Comic Books Searched; TSA Says 'Not Us'

from the no-superheroes-in-airports dept

I thought writing about San Diego Comic Con being censorial assholes would be the strangest story we'd write about Comic Con this year, but leave it to airline security to come up with an even more bizarre story. Apparently United Airlines (because of course it would be United) put up a sign at the airport in San Diego telling people that all books needed to be removed from checked bags. A Twitter user named Adi Chappo tweeted a picture of the sign at the airport:

United, being United, responded that the TSA was demanding that all comic books from San Diego Comic Con could only go in carry on luggage.

Chappo asked for more detail and United told him to reach out to the TSA directly.

This wasn't just a one-off either. Another Twitter user posted a Twitter direct message conversation with United, in which it claimed that there was a TSA restriction on any comic books in checked luggage:

So that's all bizarre enough. I mean, there has been talk about restricting electronics on flights, as well as some talk of sifting through reading materials, but comic books? From San Diego Comic Con? Many people were left wondering what the hell the TSA could be thinking... and that included the TSA. When asked about all of this by reporters, the TSA appeared to be just as confused as everyone else and insisted there was no such restriction:

There is “no restriction on anything related to putting comics or any type of books” in baggage, and TSA never put out any guidance to that effect, she said.

“In fact, they are allowed in both checked and carry-on baggage,” the spokeswoman told Consumerist, adding that there were no delays in the processing of checked bags out of San Diego yesterday.

So, there was either some sort of bizarre miscommunication between the TSA and United, or it was just United being United. Either way when it comes down to a dispute between the TSA and United, it's difficult to bet on which organization is likely to act worse.

Filed Under: airports, comic books, comic con, searches, security theater, tsa
Companies: san diego comic con, united airlines

San Diego Comic Con Gets Gag Order On Salt Lake Comic Con

from the that-darn-court-of-public-opintion dept

As you may know, San Diego Comic Con is going on right now. And, like many techie/geeky people, while I've never attended the show, I always look forward to what comes out of the event. However, SDCC is increasingly looking like a massive censorial bully. A few years ago, we covered what we believed to be a fairly silly trademark dispute that SDCC had filed against the organizers of the Salt Lake Comic Con. We pointed out that trademarking "Comic Con" seemed silly and there was no problem with multiple Comic Con's happily co-existing. And, really, SDCC is the 800-lb gorilla here. It's the dominant comic con and has been for many, many years, as it seems to grow larger and larger. Other cities having their own comic conventions doesn't take away from SDCC (if anything they tend to reinforce the dominance of SDCC).

Last month, in covering some news about the case still going on, we added a long (longer than the post itself...) editor's note about the truly weird situation in which SDCC had sent us a ridiculous subpoena demanding (among other things) any internal documents ever mentioning SDCC and implying that we had some sort of business relationship with the organizers of the SLC event (to be clear, we have zero relationship with anyone involved in either event -- we just found a story written about the case and used that as the basis for our posts on the topic). We pushed back on SDCC and noted that it really appeared that their fishing expedition was an attempt to intimidate the press from reporting on this case. It was... really strange.

And now, with SDCC happening right now, the Hollywood Reporter has the latest on the case, in which SDCC has filed for one of the strangest legal gag orders I've seen in a while. I mean, I've seen these kinds of gag order requests filed by pro se plaintiffs, but rarely by competent lawyers working at giant famous law firms.

You can read the demand for a protective order here or below, and if I had to summarize it, it's basically: "it's no fair that Salt Lake Comic Con is getting good press coverage and we're being mocked, so the court should silence them." I read through the document and I kept expecting more... and... that's really it. They literally complain that they're losing in "the court of public opinion" and argue that it's somehow unfair that one side is talking about this case publicly and they should be barred from any further conversation. And, it gives some more context to the paranoid view that was clear in the subpoena we received: SDCC and/or its lawyers are so focused on the negative press coverage that they seem to assume that something more nefarious is going on... beyond the basic likelihood that lots of people think this lawsuit is over-aggressive bullying by SDCC.

Since the inception of this dispute, Defendants have brazenly engaged in a strategic public campaign to disparage SDCC and “win this case in the court of public opinion.” Defendants’ public campaign has included statements made in numerous press releases, news articles, on websites and on social media including Facebook and Twitter. Indeed, Defendants boast they have secured more than 200,000 media articles reporting on the case that are “favorable” to Defendants.

Um, so? I have no idea what's wrong with someone trying to get their story out when they've been sued -- especially by a much larger entity. While some people choose not to go that path, there's nothing illegal about telling your story when you've been sued -- and nothing wrong with the media picking up on the story. It's news.

SDCC goes on to claim that many of the statements made by the defendants in the case "are misleading, prejudicial, inflammatory or false." If that's the case, then go after them for defamation. Don't ask for a gag order.

Defendants repeatedly litigate their case by using media outlets to mischaracterize the parties’ positions and taint the public’s perception regarding the issues in dispute in this case. Defendants’ media campaign is increasing in intensity as this case nears trial. Defendants’ goal is to win this case by using media outlets to tarnish the reputation of SDCC and taint the jury pool. As Defendant Bryan Brandenburg stated in one of Defendants’ many press releases, “I am asking for support from the community and all the powers of the Universe to bring victory to us in this case.”

The "jury" tainting is the only aspect of any of this that seems to have a kernel of reasonableness -- but seems easily dealt with during jury selection, in which you ask the potential jurors if they're familiar with the dispute. Despite the supposed 200,000 articles on this (more on that in a moment...) I find it hard to believe that the average potential juror has heard about this dispute at all. Hell, we covered it and I had totally forgotten about it until we got that stupid subpoena (it was so ridiculous that I told the process server that he must have the wrong guy when he showed up at my front door).

From here, SDCC's high priced fancy lawyers then admit that this goes against the basic First Amendment protections anyone has... but argues that's fine and dandy because -- *gosh* -- some people are being mean to them online.

It is appropriate, however, to impose greater restrictions on the free speech rights of trial participants (such as parties and their attorneys) than on the rights of nonparticipants. Levine, 764 F.2d at 595. As the Ninth Circuit noted when considering a district court’s order restricting statements of trial participants, “several other courts have considered similar restraining orders. The overwhelming majority of those courts have upheld the restraining orders.” Id. at 596 (citing numerous cases in which restraining order on trial participants were upheld).

Now, it's important to look at the details of the case that they cite as precedent for why they can gag the people they sued: Joel Levine v. US District Court for Central District. First off, that was a criminal case, not a civil one, and it involved the lawyer for one of the people who had been charged with espionage talking to the press, and the court arguing that in certain circumstances, you could issue a very narrow injunction on this type of thing. But there are lots of conditions on that and it's hard to see how those conditions apply to a civil dispute -- and especially one where the civil dispute involves a large organization (SDCC) suing a smaller one (SLCC) and then trying to further silence the small one.

Indeed, the ruling in the Levine case specifically notes that because it's talking about lawyers the standards are different:

As officers of the court, court personnel and attorneys have a fiduciary responsibility not to engage in public debate that will redound to the detriment of the accused or that will obstruct the fair administration of justice. It is very doubtful that the court would not have the power to control release of information by these individuals in appropriate cases and to impose suitable limitations whose transgression could result in disciplinary proceedings.

But in this case, SDCC is trying to gag the actual defendants, not the lawyers.

Further, the Levine opinion makes it clear that there should be strict scrutiny applied before issuing such a gag order, as it clearly is prior restraint. From the opinion:

Accordingly, the district court's order may be upheld only if the government establishes that: (1) the activity restrained poses either a clear and present danger or a serious and imminent threat to a protected competing interest,... (2) the order is narrowly drawn.... and (3) less restrictive alternatives are not available

And, really, is "people are being mean about us online" really going to qualify as "a clear and present danger or a serious and imminent threat to a protected competing interest"? Come on!

The rest of the request for the gag order is basically "damn, the other side has been effective in telling their story to the press. That's so unfair."

Since the inception of this dispute, Defendants have engaged in a willful, open, and consistent strategy to win this case “in the court of public opinion.” See Edge Decl. Ex. 1, at p. 6. Through numerous press releases, articles, interviews with various media outlets, and the pervasive use of social media, Defendants (most notably Bryan Brandenburg) have been posting material and making statements that are designed to tarnish the reputation of SDCC and thereby influence the public (including the jury pool) regarding who should prevail in this litigation. In many instances, these statements are misleading, prejudicial, inflammatory, or false. Indeed, Defendants have made their strategy and intention clear from the outset. On August 11, 2014, shortly after the dispute between the parties began, Brandenburg commented extensively in an article in Inside Counsel titled “Salt Lake Comic Con founders fight back” with the subtitle “Use the court of public opinion to combat trademark infringement claims brought by the San Diego Comic-Con.” Id. The article paints Defendants as “David” to SDCC’s “Goliath,” and compares SDCC to Superman’s nemesis Lex Luthor. Brandenburg is credited in the article with the following statement “[a]fter consulting with their lawyers, the team behind the Salt Lake Comic Con knew they had strong legal ground to stand on, but they didn’t want to go to court, they wanted to win in the court of public opinion.” Id. (emphasis added). Brandenburg is further quoted as saying “[o]ur strategy was, if we are going to spend legal fees vs. legal fees, we wanted to be creative. We put it out to the public, challenging the cease and desist letter publically.” Id. at p. 7 (emphasis added) (noting “anecdotally, the fans seem to be on the side of Salt Lake’s David rather than San Diego’s Goliath”).

Again, I'm trying to understand what the issue is here. Lots of people involved in court cases look to get support in the court of public opinion, but none of that really matters compared to the court of actual opinion: the court that is hearing the case. And, sure, the jury tainting bit is potentially an issue, but only if you really believe that the entire jury pool is going to be tainted by this. And that seems... difficult to believe.

Of course, the whole "200,000" articles bit is part of the effort to argue that this info is widespread... but the details there are... lacking. It appears the vast majority of those 200,000 are... because the Associated Press wrote about the case and it has 160,000 distribution partners.

Defendants boast that an article written by the Associated Press about this dispute was published in more than 160,000 news outlets worldwide and claim many media outlets have already declared Salt Lake Comic Con the winner in the court of public opinion.

Okay... well, I went looking for the AP stories on the case... and they're pretty damn balanced (as you would expect from the AP). Here's one from 2015 that seems unlikely to bias anyone:

Salt Lake City co-founder Bryan Brandenburg said the trademark announced Thursday will be decisive in the suit, but attorneys for the established San Diego Comic-Con disagree. The case appears headed for trial after settlement talks broke down earlier this month.

And a more recent article:

Settlement talks have broken down between the organizers of two pop-culture conventions in California and Utah known for guests' elaborate costumes, Salt Lake Comic Con officials said Tuesday.

Both sides are asking a judge to decide the contest over naming rights, said Bryan Brandenburg, co-founder of Salt Lake Comic Con.

"They want us to change our name," Brandenburg said. If the federal judge overseeing the case in San Diego doesn't side with either convention, the case could go before a jury later this year. Salt Lake has already spent nearly $1 million legal fees on the case.

Those are both snippets from longer articles, but hardly proof that a jury will be biased.

What about social media? SDCC whines that one of the organizers of the SLC event has 5,000 Twitter followers and the SLCC Twitter feed has 30,000:

Importantly, Defendants’ public campaign is not limited to press releases and contact with news media outlets. Bryan Brandenburg has waged war against SDCC on social media as well. Brandenburg uses his Twitter feed, which has more than 5,200 followers, to comment on the dispute and disparage SDCC. See Edge Decl. Ex. 4. Similarly, Defendants use the Salt Lake Comic Con Twitter feed, which has more than 30,000 followers to comment on the dispute and accuse SDCC of fraud.

I mean, 30,000 Twitter followers is nothing to sneeze at, but... uh... let's take a look at SDCC's Twitter followers, shall we?

Now, I'm no math genius, but 1.55 million followers seems like... a wee bit more than 35,000 or so. But... but... but, SDCC replies: it's not fair that the SLC guys speak out because SDCC has specifically chosen not to comment:

It is also worth noting that in the face of Defendants’ public attacks, SDCC has exercised incredible restraint and has not responded in kind. SDCC believes this dispute should be litigated and decided in this Court. However, if Defendants’ conduct goes unchecked, SDCC will have no choice but to defend itself publically in order to protect its reputation and set the record straight when Defendants disseminate false or misleading information. This type of public exchange regarding ongoing litigation is not productive or conducive to judicial integrity and SDCC hopes it can be avoided.

Incredible restraint. We're so proud of you SDCC. Of course, it didn't stop you from sending a bogus subpoena to us (and who knows how many other media properties), potentially creating massive chilling effects on media companies reporting on your silly dispute. And, really, what exactly is the problem with responding publicly? If you don't want to, don't. If you do, do. But, if you're just concerned about the outcome of the court case, focus on that, not gagging anyone.

Unfortunately... it appears that the court granted the gag order just days before SDCC was set to start. It does limit the request though, noting that the first two parts of the request would be unconstitutional prior restraint. That covers "any false or misleading statements about SDCC or any of its board members" or "any false or misleading statements about the merits of this dispute." What the judge did grant was a gag order on statements that "accuses, suggests, implies or states that SDCC lied and/or committed fraud," "any statement about the genericness of the term comic con," "any statement about whether the term comic con is descriptive" and "any statement about whether SDCC abandoned any trademark rights."

I have trouble seeing how the first two are unconstitutional prior restraint, but the rest are allowed to be gagged -- especially something as mundane as discussing whether comic con is generic or descriptive. But, really, since the court apparently doesn't want anyone discussing that kind of thing, perhaps go ahead and have a discussion in the comments about that very question. And, in case SDCC's high priced lawyers are looking at this yet again, I'll remind you once again that we have no relationship of any kind with the organizers of the Salt Lake City event. We just don't like big bullies silencing people or filing questionable lawsuits.

Filed Under: bryan brandenburg, comic con, free speech, gag order, protective order, subpoena, trademark
Companies: salt lake comic con, san diego comic con, sdcc

from the comic-can't,-amirite? dept

Editor's Note from Mike Masnick: Tim alerted me that he was writing on this subject, based on the article he found in the Deseret News, and I realized that we separately needed to reveal some stuff that happened earlier this year in relation to Tim's earlier reporting on this story. As Tim mentions in the story below, he first wrote about this case in 2014 (again, based on an article he found in the Deseret News) and then mentioned it obliquely in 2015 when discussing another lawsuit, and until now, had not written about it again. Back in February, one evening, I received a knock on my front door at home, with a process server handing me a subpoena. I was... confused. The subpoena was from a lawyer, Michelle Herrera, of the very large law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, on behalf of San Diego Comic Con. I was still confused. The subpoena demanded all sorts of information from us, including any "business relationship" we might have with the people who ran the Salt Lake City Comic Con (including whether or not they held any ownership stake in our company), any communications we had ever had with the organizers of Salt Lake City Comic Con and... incredibly... "all documents concerning SDCC or any SDCC Convention."

Yes, because three years ago we had written a story -- clearly based on coverage in the Deseret News -- San Diego Comic Con was demanding that we cough up every document we have that even mentions San Diego Comic Con, while similarly implying that merely having written about a legal dispute (something we do all the damn time) meant that we were somehow in cahoots with the folks who run Salt Lake City Comic Con -- people neither Tim nor I (nor anyone else working here) have ever spoken to in any context for any reason. Such a request, beyond being over-broad and completely misguided, is also a nuisance and a burden. At best, it appeared to be a wild and unnecessary fishing expedition. At worst, it could certainly be seen as an attempt to stifle reporting that was critical of San Diego Comic Con's litigation strategy.

It also wasted our time and resources, while at least creating something of a chilling effect in making us think twice about whether it was even worth it to publish the article below, because who knows if it will lead to another knock on my door, and more time having to talk with lawyers and whatnot.

Either way, soon after receiving the subpoena, lawyer Ken "Popehat" White, filed our response, noting that we had no responsive documents for most of it, but also objecting to the overly broad nature of the request. The key part:

With respect to request 7, seeking “All documents concerning SDCC or any SDCC convention,” Witness responds that the request is over-broad, burdensome, harassing, not reasonably calculated to lead to production of admissible evidence, and seeks documents equally available to Plaintiff. Witness operates a popular blog, Techdirt.com, that has covered legal issues surrounding technology and internet culture since 1997. Plaintiff has served this subpoena because Witness has published two posts critical of Plaintiff’s case. The public posts Witness has published about SDCC or mentioning SDCC are equally available to Plaintiff at https://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=comic+con or https://www.techdirt.com/search-g.php?q=comicon. It would be extremely burdensome and expensive for Witness to review 20 years of records of reporting to determine if it has any document mentioning SDCC or any SDCC convention, whether or not those documents have any relationship to this case. Moreover, Plaintiff’s motive to seek such a wide range of documents unrelated to this case is clearly to harass and retaliate against Witness for critical coverage of Plaintiff’s case. Moreover, Witness objects pursuant to California Evidence Code § 1070 that the subpoena seeks unpublished information from a publisher. O'Grady v. Superior Court, 139 Cal. App.4th 1423 (Cal. Ct. App. 2006) [Section 1070 protects online news magazine]. Witness stands on its objections and will not produce documents in response to this request.

We filed that in response and never heard another peep from San Diego Comic Con. But, Tim found this latest bit of news and wished to report on it, and we felt it necessary to waste even more time putting together this bit of disclosure about SDCC's subpoena to us. No wonder the damn case is still going. Anyway... on to Tim's post:

Nearly three years ago, we wrote about a rather silly trademark dispute between the folks that run the San Diego Comic-Con and Don Farr Productions, organizers of the Salt Lake City Comic Con. The SDCC has a registered trademark for "comic-con" and suggested that iterations such as "comic con" infringed on that trademark. We pointed out at the time that there are all kinds of comic conventions using similar or identical terms, and many had done so for many years, resulting in the term "comic con" being rendered generic. Add to that the low likelihood that anyone would actually be confused into thinking these other conventions were the product of the SDCC and this whole episode seemed head-scratchingly silly.

Except it isn't silly for those targeted by these kinds of bullying trademark lawsuits. Despite the SDCC filing its suit in the summer of 2014, I want to take a moment to point out that this legal dispute is still going on and has finally reached the deposition phase.

Co-founders Dan Farr and Bryan Brandenburg will each face a full day of deposition Tuesday and Wednesday, leading up to a final settlement conference before a federal judge in San Diego on Thursday. Following that conference, the judge will decide whether the case will continue to advance toward a trial scheduled in October. While the organizers staunchly maintain they are in the right, Brandenburg says that after investing approximately $1 million in their defense, they are ready to focus exclusively on their event.

"I would just as soon use those creative juices to really level up (the event)," Brandenburg said. "I think we've done a great job putting on great events over the past two years in spite of this thing going on, but you know, just imagine what we could do if it wasn't."

This is the largely unheralded toll that is paid when these kinds of trademark disputes arise. Sure, there is the cost of legal fees to consider, and the annoyance of having to defend themselves in court as well. But there is a cost to the public as well, paid in terms of a lack of production that would otherwise exist by the accused. When individuals or companies that are not truly infringing upon a trademark get caught up in this sort of legal web, their customers suffer along with them.

What's truly irritating about all of this is how the SDCC appears to have decided to enforce this trademark at the flip of a switch, having spent years failing to do so. The Salt Lake City folks, meanwhile, remain rather sweet in their disposition by comparison.

Brandenburg emphasized that despite the prolonged litigation, he and Farr hold no ill will toward San Diego Comic-Con but continue to admire the iconic event. He speculated that the lawsuit represents a kind of "Custer's last stand" for San Diego Comic-Con, which has dabbled for years in taking action about other events using the name "comic con," ultimately latching onto the Salt Lake event after Brandenburg and Farr drove their branded Audi to the competing event in July 2014.

In the lawsuit, the San Diego convention claims legal ownership over the term "comic con" in its various forms, though similar events around the country — including the recently renamed "Stan Lee's Los Angeles Comic Con" — have used the name for years.

The San Diego Comic-Con remains a wildly successful event. By all accounts, it is one hell of a show, one that I personally have wanted to visit for some time. It reached that level of success despite years of other conventions using some form of the "comic con" term. What harm it may have suffered that would warrant three years worth of litigation, and all of the legal costs associated with that litigation, is absolutely beyond me.

Filed Under: deposition, fishing expedition, subpoena, trademark
Companies: salt lake city comic con, san diego comic con