Posted in: Avengers, Marvel Studios, Movies | Tagged: marvel, Marvel Studios, mcu, trademark

Marvel Studios Registers Opening As Greek Gods, Ghosts & Rectangles

Published Sun, 13 Mar 2022 08:58:11 -0500

Marvel Characters is registering a trademark for Marvel Studios and the above image, taking in stills from the famous movie and TV opening crawl for their films and shows as seen below. It will be registered for "Entertainment services in the nature of production and distribution of motion pictures". But it also means that they have to describe it as part of the registration, and that's where it gets weird. It feels like some kind of bizarre beat poetry, a legalistic attempt to describe what the Marvel Cinematic Universe is, by Marvel lawyer David Kelley.

04.01.07 – Aliens ; Apollo (mythology) ; Athena (mythology) ; Caped characters (super heroes) ; Ghosts ; Mythological beings, superbeings, ghosts, aliens ; Super heroes ; Zeus (mythology)
26.11.13 – Rectangles (exactly two rectangles) ; Two rectangles
26.11.21 – Rectangles that are completely or partially shaded
26.17.01 – Bands, straight ; Bars, straight ; Lines, straight ; Straight line(s), band(s) or bar(s)
26.17.05 – Bands, horizontal ; Bars, horizontal ; Horizontal line(s), band(s) or bar(s) ; Lines, horizontal

Isn't it a bit off to describe the MCU using Greek gods who are not prominent in Marvel Comics, and absent from the MCU? No Thor or Odin, not even Hercules who is probably due an introduction to the MCU any day. And who are these ghosts? Okay, there is a character called Ghost from the Ant-Man movies, but unless Uncle Ben is going to turn up in a sheet going "wooo woooo", it's a peculiar way to describe the trademarkable aspects of the MCU. Also, you know how the Chinese censorship folk feel about the appearance of ghosts in their movies.

Anyway, here is the visual representation of the MCU crawl being registered for a trademark. Tell me if you can see Apollo, ghosts or exactly two rectangles. If you can, maybe you could be an entertainment trademark lawyer as well. Apparently, someone had to be.