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Trademarking Movie Titles

By Jonathan Handel

Literary titles - such as book or movie titles - fall in a gray area in U.S. law. For instance, although a book or movie is protected by copyright, its title isn't. Copyright simply doesn't cover titles.

And even if the title is distinctive, such as The 40-Year-Old Virgin, courts and the Trademark Office say it can't be registered as a trademark, even though distinctive words and slogans can be registered as trademarks in other contexts. There's an exception for series titles, such as Harry Potter, but that's of no help to single-work titles.

The rule against trademark registration purports to be absolute, and has been in place for at least 50 years. Nonetheless, I've developed ways to protect single-work movie titles using trademark registration -- effectively circumventing the long-established rule.

I've written a short article on the subject, in relatively plain English. It's the cover story in this month's Los Angeles Lawyer magazine. Click the link and check it out, or at least look at the picture on the cover and the amusing illustrations the magazine added.

(Note: Clicking the link downloads the magazine as a pdf. To read the article, click on the article title on the cover, and the pdf will jump to the first page of the article. If you'd like a pdf of just the article, rather than the whole magazine, email me at jhandel at att dot net.)

Full post as published by Digital Media Law on April 02, 2008 (boomark / email).