You
know
how
Marvel
and
DC
have
held
joint
ownership
over
trademarks
for
“Super
Hero”
for
decades?
That
time
is
apparently
mostly
over,
as
the
US
Patent
and
Trademark
Office
has
canceled
the
companies’
claim
to
several
of
their
trademarks,
reports
Reuters.
The
cancellation
comes
as
the
result
of
a
challenge
from
Superbabies
Limited,
a
small
company
that
produces
a
series
of
Superbabies
comics
about,
well,
superhero
babies.
Superbabies
creator
S.J.
Richold
decided
to
challenge
the
two
comic
giants’
claim
to
the
trademarks
after
DC
“attempted
to
block
Richold’s
efforts
to
promote
The
Super
Babies,”
wrote
the
law
firm
that
represented
Richold
in
a
release.
Marvel
and
DC
didn’t
respond
to
the
challenge
by
a
July
24th,
2024
due
date,
resulting
in
the
marks’
cancellation,
according
to
the
USPTO’s
decision.
As
such,
the
office
canceled
four
patents,
the
oldest
of
which
USPTO
records
show
was
for
the
trademark
“SUPER
HERO,”
registered
in
1967.
The
two
companies
still
co-own
a
“SUPER
HEROES”
trademark,
registered
in
2018,
as
well
as
a
“SUPER-VILLAIN”
trademark
that
they
secured
in
1985.
If
you
want
to
dive
down
a
rabbit
hole
on
the
subject
of
Marvel
and
DC’s
super
hero-related
trademarks,
I’ve
got
just
the
thing.
One
of
the
lawyers
involved
in
the
Superbabies
trademark
challenge,
Adam
Adler,
actually
wrote
up
a
two-part
series
of
articles
for
Escapist
Magazine
lightly
explaining
how
the
companies
came
to
jointly
own
the
trademarks
and
what
they’ve
done
to
guard
that
ownership
over
the
years.
Adler
links
out
to
other
articles
with
even
deeper
dives,
too.
Original author: Wes Davis
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