Stellarblade, a small film production company you’ve never heard of, is suing Sony and Shift Up for using Star Blade Among this year’s top action-adventure films.
It’s easy to read that opening sentence, assume it’s one of those cases of opportunism that follows any successful intellectual property (“I once wrote on the back of a napkin an idea for a man with spider powers!”), and roll your eyes. But in the case of Stellarblade Vs. Star Bladesince I am required to write it on all legal documents, so things are a little delicate.
Trademark law is boring, but one of the elements that is often forgotten whenever a case like this comes up is that if you want to keep your trademark, you must have to defend it. If you’ve ever wondered what it feels like to watch your brand name be swallowed up by other brands so much that it loses its identity entirely, just ask Escalator, Hovercraft and Trampoline. If a company does not defend its brand aggressively, it may lose the legal right to hold its trademark.
So, yeah, if I own a film company called Stellarblade, and all of a sudden a much bigger company comes along and uses that term, destroying my chances of being discovered on Google, and taking my business away forever Connected with my video games. However, I probably wouldn’t overthink it to the point of wanting to ruin an already released video game.
It is reported IGNThat’s the dilemma Griffith Chambers Mehaffey, owner of Louisiana-based film production company Stellar Blade, has faced for the past 14 years. The game was renamed in 2022, when it went from eve plan arrive Star BladeMehaffey noticed that his Google rankings had plummeted, and he was understandably frustrated. He claimed it cost him a lot of money and put his business in jeopardy because he had dominated search terms since he registered www.stellarblade.com in 2006.
However, when you learn that Mehaffey until back Shift Up changes its game name to Star Bladefiled for his trademark in 2023. IGNsent a cease and desist letter to Shift Up. But, again, copyright is assumed, not registered, and I’m honestly glad I’m not a lawyer because this whole area is a mess.
Things get even sillier when you look at the case Mehaffey makes. First claiming his company’s logo is “confusingly similar” to Star Bladeof(They look nothing alike), at which point there was an unfortunate echo Tim Randall’s endless trolling over the years and his attempts to own the word “Edge”.
But “Request for Relief” is where things get really weird. according to IGNthe injunction calls for “prohibiting Shift Up and Sony from using Stellar Blade or any other similar name, and requiring them to hand over all materials in their possession bearing the name ‘Stellar Blade’ so that Mehaffey and Stellarblade can destroy them.”
Yeah, that’s… not going to happen. While SEO damage does hurt, it’s also hard to imagine that “stellarblade.com” that he owns hasn’t proven to be at least somewhat advantageous, as his site may have been in the last year or so. Regardless, one thing is for sure: the publicity this story has generated means that you now have Heard of Stellarblade, a small film production company.
CNN has reached out to Mehaffey to inquire about his motives and intentions.
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