Both Pokemon amd Monster Hunter were around before Monster Energy, so it would be a very funny "let them fight" moment if they both counter sued lmao
Nintendo is notoriously litigious, too, so it'd be interesting to see where that goes
Critical support to Nintendo legal for suing those Mario treet cart fuckers into oblivion.
The real fate worse than death for lawyers is forcing all non-family law lawyers to do divorces and all family lawyers to do tax shit.
Public defenders are good though, full support to them.
Someone explain this to me. I'm completely perplexed by these dumb shit laws. I thought you can only sue for trademark infringement if another company or individual within the SAME industry or has the same type of product with your name. Like if Red Bull released MONSTER RED BULL where red bull is in small text
How can some random media broadcaster sue No Man's Sky for using "Sky" when their industries are completely irrelevant? How can Monster sue Nintendo for this when their shit are complete opposites?
It's because justice is too expensive to be accessible. Most IP lawyers would look at this kind of claim and conclude Monster's case is shit and it'll probably lose. Buuuut, to get that verdict you'd probably have to spend $100k minimum in legal fees and in the end Monster won't be ordered to pay you any damages.
That's why they go after smaller Devs and Indies and not Nintendo ("Pocket Monsters") and their billions and billions of dollars. An indie might just settle for a few thousand dollars but Nintendo wouldn't blink about throwing a million dollars at fighting the case out of principle.
I'm not 100% about this but I think that creating a lot of legal "noise" around your copyrights makes them stronger somehow. Like its easier to win a case around copyright if you consistently enforce your copyright than if you do absolutely nothing for a while then try to enforce it. It still comes down to corporate lawyers trying to justify their existence though.
That's about trademarks, not copyright. Trademarks work that way, kind of use it or lose it. If you don't care about it, neither does the government.
But copyright is kind of immutable. It's a right. If you make something, it's yours. It could become the most popular thing in the world, everybody's making memes out of your drawing, people are selling t-shirts with your drawing on it, there are airline companies branding themselves entirely around your drawing. One day, you can just decide that your buddy John Smith is specifically not allowed to use it anymore. You can file DMCA claims or whatever, and the best part is that you don't even have to give a reason. He'd be like, "this is bullshit, everybody's using it, why can't I?" and you can just say "because I said so" and that's a legally watertight argument.
Enforcement of it could get tricky, but the law would be 100% on your side.
and to be clear this situation is about Monster Energy's trademark on the word Monster
Yup, I just like to make sure the difference is clear. Misconceptions about trademarks end up making people think all kinds of silly stuff about copyright law
Buuuut, to get that verdict you’d probably have to spend $100k minimum in legal fees and in the end Monster won’t be ordered to pay you any damages.
Numerous states have anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) laws that allow relatively cheap methods for dismissing vexatious litigation and recovery of legal costs as a countersuit action.
It's more to do with brand recognition not a copyright issue - so when people hear a name/word they associate it with a particular brand, regardless of the differences or crossover in the medium. In this case it is purely money - 'owning' the word Monster means that whoever uses it have to either potentially pay a fee to continue using it, relinquish the rights, or change the name entirely.
Monster are being chancers - a pinhead in their legal team thought this would be a good idea to go after Nintendo and Capcom.
I remember being in my teens and hearing this exact fucking shit about the word "Saga" and the "Candy Crush Saga" devs or whatever harrassing an indie game called something Saga.
