information Disney moves to protect Baby Yoda

[Lox]

WTR previously reported on the black market in Baby Yoda products that emerged in the wake of Disney’s new Star Wars series ‘The Mandalorian’. It has been estimated that Disney lost out on potentially more than $3 million in merchandise sales.

However, the company has now registered (reported by theblast) 28 trademark applications for merchandise associated with “The Child” and “The Mandalorian The Child” (nicknames for the character).

Disney CEO Bob Iger has explained the reason for not previously seeking registration as a tactic to keep the character concealed from audiences for as long as possible:

“We didn’t tell anybody about that character’s presence in the series, or even in the first episode… if we had given the design out, it would have gone out to hundreds and hundreds of people, probably all over the world, and we didn’t want to do that.”

Given that the character has spawned a huge internet following upon the series’ release, the potential gains for the series by Baby Yoda’s secrecy may have made up for any losses in merchandise sales.

(The Disney brand/IP protection team are keeping a close-eye on domain names, many babyyoda.ext, Mandalorian+Word.ext and such domains have been registered in ccTLDs and nGTLDs.)

Source (WTR - World Trademark Review)

 

[WhoaDomain.com]

Yea like

BabyYoda.com
BabyYoda.net
BabyYoda.org

None mine.

 

[WhoaDomain.com]

This "excuse" that they did not reg trademark for BabyYoda is a bit bogus.

It's well documented that Disney dropped the ball as far as merchandising for Mandalorian. Reg the TM is just part of this ball dropping.

Regging a TM is not instant. From start to finish takes time.

But once you file. It is "entered" but won't "show" in the USPTO website for a month? At least that how it happened with mine.

You will seem in any TM when filed and when Live.

Trust me. They simply "forgot".

 

[Lox]

In most cases, a business gets common law rights to a name a.s.a. it is used in commerce (a.s.a. they start selling a product/service). It's called common law TM ownership without formally registering it.
(IMO they did that on purpose; a *good product, bad product and ugly product)

 

[Ategy]

I've been paying attention to how this would all play out since I started watching the show.

The best part is that it's actually *NOT* Yoda! lol

Yoda was well over 850 years old before the first Stormtrooper existed! Plus they's confirmed (both directly and through the plotline) that this takes place about 5 - 10 years after the original trilogy (shortly after Yoda dies at the age of 900).

That being said .. they've been using "Yoda" on toy packaging for decades, so they're definitely protected, and anyone who registers anything like BabyYoda.___ will be found to very clearly be infringing on Disney's tradamark rights (regardless as to if they actually bothered to register "Baby Yoda" or not.

On the other end .. I doubt they could successfully trademark just "The Child" alone. However, on the other side of the spectrum, "Mandalorian" is quite unique and distinctive (even more so than "Yoda"), they shouldn't have any problems enforcing their TM claims to just about any domain that includes the "fictional" word.


In the end, unless you're making a fan site (and never plan to make a single cent from advertising or selling it), don't register any domain with "Yoda" or "Mandalorian", as it most certainly is infringing on Disney's rights AND it gives the domain industry a bad reputation because when you target very distinctive marks like that, it *IS* cyber-squatting.


ADDED: "Baby Yoda" is also not a case of "Force inspired" reincarnation, as they mention "the baby" is 50 years old at the time of The Mandalorian show, which would mean the baby in this show was born about 40-45 years before Yoda dies. I'm thinking they really didn't expect this reaction, so didn't really think it out too much .. but at this point they'll likely retroactively make him a clone of Yoda so the name "Baby Yoda" makes sense (although to be clear I'm talking about the actual story here, they'd still be covered for almost Anything+Yoda because of the original movies and toys). If we're just talking storyline, then it's not too far fetched, because in theory according to previous Star Wars films, "The Force" is strong in individuals as opposed to races, although why their galaxy wasn't filled with other clones from previous Jedi is a bigger plot issue. Because if you're able to steal DNA from Yoda, then you can from just about anyone (or so I'd think) .. and note that's not legal advice .. it's just best practices to not try to steal DNA from any Jedi.. lol.

 

[Lox]

In the end, unless you're making a fan site (and never plan to make a single cent from advertising or selling it), don't register any domain with "Yoda" or "Mandalorian",

Number of extensions registered so far:
49 = BabyYoda
48 = Mandalorian

 

[CaseWrap]

I've been paying attention to how this would all play out since I started watching the show.

The best part is that it's actually *NOT* Yoda! lol

Yoda was well over 850 years old before the first Stormtrooper existed! Plus they's confirmed (both directly and through the plotline) that this takes place about 5 - 10 years after the original trilogy (shortly after Yoda dies at the age of 900).

That being said .. they've been using "Yoda" on toy packaging for decades, so they're definitely protected, and anyone who registers anything like BabyYoda.___ will be found to very clearly be infringing on Disney's tradamark rights (regardless as to if they actually bothered to register "Baby Yoda" or not.

On the other end .. I doubt they could successfully trademark just "The Child" alone. However, on the other side of the spectrum, "Mandalorian" is quite unique and distinctive (even more so than "Yoda"), they shouldn't have any problems enforcing their TM claims to just about any domain that includes the "fictional" word.


In the end, unless you're making a fan site (and never plan to make a single cent from advertising or selling it), don't register any domain with "Yoda" or "Mandalorian", as it most certainly is infringing on Disney's rights AND it gives the domain industry a bad reputation because when you target very distinctive marks like that, it *IS* cyber-squatting.


ADDED: "Baby Yoda" is also not a case of "Force inspired" reincarnation, as they mention "the baby" is 50 years old at the time of The Mandalorian show, which would mean the baby in this show was born about 40-45 years before Yoda dies. I'm thinking they really didn't expect this reaction, so didn't really think it out too much .. but at this point they'll likely retroactively make him a clone of Yoda so the name "Baby Yoda" makes sense (although to be clear I'm talking about the actual story here, they'd still be covered for almost Anything+Yoda because of the original movies and toys). If we're just talking storyline, then it's not too far fetched, because in theory according to previous Star Wars films, "The Force" is strong in individuals as opposed to races, although why their galaxy wasn't filled with other clones from previous Jedi is a bigger plot issue. Because if you're able to steal DNA from Yoda, then you can from just about anyone (or so I'd think) .. and note that's not legal advice .. it's just best practices to not try to steal DNA from any Jedi.. lol.

Important now, he is.
Could be clone.
Disney didn't forget to register TMs, since they have already regged his name. (secret for now)