SLCC/FanX Gets A Stay On $4 Million In Legal Fees For SDCC Pending Appeal

from the by-a-thread dept

The whole saga of the trademark dispute between the famous San Diego Comic-Con comics convention and the smaller Salt Lake Comic Con has been a long and stupid one. Despite everyone with a working brain knowing that the term "comic-con" is both generic and descriptive, SDCC has a trademark on the term that it managed to wield like a legal sword attempting to slay SLCC. While a jury trial returned only a $20k judgement, the court then awarded $4 million in legal fees in favor of SDCC, arguing that SLCC's legal team attempted to jam up the trial process and timeline with its tactics. After all of this, SLCC changed its name to FanX, a whole bunch of other conventions proactively changed their own names, and FanX promised to appeal everything.

But it was an open question if SLCC/FanX would survive long enough for the appeal to take place. A $4 million dollar payout to SDCC, according to SLCC, would simply have crippled it and put it out of business altogether. This was the argument made to the appeals court, in which SLCC/FanX asked for a stay on the payments pending the appeal process. Fortunately, the court agreed to delay the attorney's fees payments.

With the judgment set to come due Oct. 22, FanX organizers sought a stay from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last week, arguing paying the bill in full now would "destroy" the business, hurt Utah's economy and prevent them from continuing with their appeal.

However, organizers argued that if they were allowed to wait to pay, FanX would be able to continue operating and, if they ultimately lose their appeal, they could pay the judgment in full.

In FanX wins the appeal, the judgment could be invalidated.

And not just that, but FanX is also seeking to have the entire verdict that resulted in this award appealed as well, arguing that its lawyers were prevented from making sound arguments that "comic-con" is a generic term, which it absolutely is.

But two things should be immediately obvious. First, this stay is perfectly just. A legal fees award that would cripple a party from defending itself on appeal is the sort of thing that seems purely outside the realm of how the legal process is supposed to work. The second is that this attorney's fees award is absolutely just as bonkers as I claimed it was when it was announced. To have that kind of number in fees awarded attached to a judgement that was in the five figures breaks all barriers of simple common sense.

At least this way, we'll get to see FanX take this to appeal.

Filed Under: comic con, comic conventions, legal fees, trademark
Companies: salt lake comic con, san diego comic-con, sdcc

San Diego Comic-Con Petitions Judge To Have Salt Lake Comic Con Pay Its Attorney's Fees, Bar It From Calling Itself A 'Comic Convention'

from the don't-describe-yourself dept

Perhaps you thought that the legal drama between the famous San Diego Comic-Con and the Salt Lake Comic Con was over. Our ongoing coverage of this trademark dispute stemming from SDCC somehow having a valid trademark on "comic-con", a shortened descriptor phrase for a comic convention, largely concluded when SDCC "won" in court, being awarded $20,000 after initially asking for $12 million in damages. With the focus now turning to the roughly gazillion other comic conventions that exist using the "comic-con" phrase in their names and marketing materials, this particular dispute seemed to have come to a close.

But not so much, actually. In post-trial motions, SDCC petitioned Judge Battaglia to consider the case "exceptional" so that SDCC can recover attorney's fees from SLCC. The arguement for SDCC appears to mostly be that they spent a shit-ton of money on attorneys for the case.

U.S. District Judge Anthony Battaglia heard a host of posttrial motions Thursday, including San Diego Comic-Con’s request for over $4.5 million in attorney fees which have already been paid in full. San Diego Comic-Con attorney Callie Bjurstrom with Pillsbury Law told Battaglia Thursday he should find the case is “exceptional” so that attorney fees and costs can be awarded.

“This was a very expensive case; the reason this case was so expensive was because of defendants and their counsel and the way they litigated this case,” Bjurstrom said.

It will be interesting to see how Judge Battaglia rules on the assertion that SLCC's defense of itself warrants its paying SDCC's attorney's fees. What exactly was SLCC supposed to do, not try to defend itself in the best way possible? One also wonders if SDCC would be petitioning for attorney's fees had the jury found that SLCC's infringement was not willful, resulting in the paltry $20k award. Perhaps, perhaps not. What this sure looks like is the SDCC realizing that this "win" came at the cost of a hilariously large amount of money and it is attempting to mitigate that loss.

SDCC also petitioned the court to bar SLCC from using its trademarks. That sort of thing would be par for the course except for two things. First, again, this trademark is ridiculous. It's purely descriptive. Second, hammering home that fact, SDCC doesn't want SLCC to even be able to properly describe the type of event it is.

But San Diego Comic-Con’s request went a step further than simply asking Battaglia to enjoin the Salt Lake convention operators from infringing its trademarks: it asked the judge to bar the Salt Lake convention from using the words “comic convention” or phonetic equivalents to “Comic Con” or “comic convention.”

That request should lay plain how dumb this all is. If a comic convention cannot refer to itself as such because that is too close to the trademark "comic-con", then it should be plain as day that "comic-con" is purely descriptive and, therefore, invalid as a trademark. I wouldn't be surprised to see this petition to the court turn up at the USPTO in a bid to cancel SDCC's trademark entirely. That's certainly what I would be doing if I were heading up any of the hundreds of comic cons out there.

Filed Under: comic conventions, salt lake comic con, san diego comic-con, trademark
Companies: salt lake comic con, san diego comic-con