Originally published at: Marvel and DC lose trademark on "superhero" - Boing Boing
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Word theft you say? Why I remember back in nineteen-dickety-two.
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… wow, it does not seem like Disney or Warner to drop the ball like that 
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The link goes to the judgment, not the petition.
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You still have to fight MIT to the death if you want a meta or hyper hero; however.
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I had always dismissed the absurd trademark claim without thinking about it (because of the obvious prior art in the term), but yeah, a shared trademark doesn’t make a lick of sense. The whole trademark claim falls apart for multiple reasons.
It’s almost as if they always knew the trademark claim was total bullshit that they couldn’t defend if it got to court, and were just using the threat of a legal fight with the two biggest comic/media companies to scare the rest of the industry into submission. 
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That reminded me of this.
By 1965, when the face had grown in stature to become a familiar punch line in the national culture, the widow of a cartoonist named Harry Spencer Stuff brought a lawsuit against MAD. Neuman, the plaintiff claimed, was a copy of Stuff’s caricature “The Original Optimist,” also known as “Me-worry?”, which he had copyrighted in 1914.
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When they said they both owned it, I was like well why can’t other people too since more than one apparently can. Ultimately one of them should have said it was theirs and the other could ‘use’ it with their permission which might have held more legal water.
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I imagine that comes with its own legal issues (beside coming up with an ultimately bogus license agreement between two entities that are both not wanting to cede the trademark), and one company using it “with permission” (and essentially giving up the trademark themselves), yet using it without referring to the other’s comics/characters, would reveal the trademark to be the farce that it was*. But yeah, that they didn’t even bother with that is another point indicating they both knew the trademark claim didn’t hold a lot of water, and they were relying purely on the threat of legal action to maintain it.
*My understanding of trademark isn’t terribly deep or nuanced, but surely if Marvel, say, was the ostensible holder of the trademark, and DC use it to refer purely to their own comics and characters, then it’s diluting the trademark, even if used with permission. Both parties would be essentially admitting that “superhero” wasn’t something unique to, and identifying of, Marvel products. Seems like it fundamentally becomes the same problem as claiming a co-trademark. “It’s a unique identifier for us and us alone.” “But also us.”
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It’s such a generic term, and rarely but occasionally enforced, it shouldn’t be a trademark.
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… the long struggle between Apple Records and Apple Computer comes to mind 
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… though the so-called “National Association of REALTORS®” seems to exist for that very purpose
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The earlier link in the post does go to the petition.
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PREVIOUSLY ON BOING BOING
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Trademarking the word “superhero “ makes you most definitely not one
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And that one was pretty straightforward, at least until Apple Computers started selling music…
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I recall that before 1980, one had the copyright on “superhero” and the other on “super-hero”.
Wow … they nailed them on ONE point. Marvel and DC were ignoring the use of the term by each other. And trademarks are supposed to be a distinguishing mark of ONE and only ONE company.
Under the Lanham Act, a mark may only be registered if it allows the goods of “the applicant” (singular) to “be distinguished from the goods of others.” 15 U.S.C. § 1052. The Lanham Act does not allow two competitors to jointly own a single mark
Marvel and DC’s assent to the use of the Challenged Marks by a competitor constitutes abandonment of the marks under 15 U.S.C. § 1127, as the assent and joint registration has caused SUPER HEROES to “lose its significance as a mark” (to the extent it had any such significance to begin with).
I’m glad Marvel and DC don’t get to claim “superhero” as a trademark but I’m not sure I agree with the petitioners’ side either:
It seems like “superbabies,” like many other terms that use the “super-“ prefix, isn’t really a novel phrase deserving of trademark protection. For example, it was the title of one of those godawful-looking “talking babies and/or pets” movies from the early aughts.
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