Wasn’t it fun to travel through the galaxies and experience different adventures with unimaginable creatures on different varieties of planets? 

Still, wondering what exactly we are talking about here? 

“Wonder, you must not.

Star Wars, it is”

–  as Master Yoda would have said.

We could see the use of creativity in abundance in the Star Wars film which was created by Lucasfilm. As we all know that creativity and innovation is something which is protected by intellectual property rights, let us board the Millennium Falcon and ride into hyperspace exploring the intellectual property assets which belong to the Star Wars franchise.

Trademarks 

Anything which was created under the Star Wars name was filed to be trademarked whether it was the characters, planets, vehicles, lands, etc.

Remember the cute, round, and wobbly BB-8, the short robot – R2-D2 which held countless tales in its memory bank about the heroics and tragedy from the various wars in space? These robots were referred to as droids in the film. The term droid was developed by Lucas in the original film which was released in 1977. 

“Droid” which means a humanized machine is one of the many words which is trademarked and now any company using this term would have to pay Lucasfilm. 

Along with this, the character’s names such as Yoda, Darth Vader, C3PO, Princess Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and many others are registered as trademarks in various countries under various classes of trademarks. The list of trademarks does not end here it stretches further to the terms such as Wookiee, Gungan, Ewok, etc.

Not only the terms but even the phrases such as “may the force be with you” have been registered as a trademark by Lucasfilm. Even some common generic terms such as Boba Fett, Jango Fett, Bounty Hunter, etc. have also received trademark protection. 

There have been many lawsuits filed by Lucasfilm as their trademarks were infringed. For example, in the case of Lucasfilm Limited LLC and Lucas film entertainment company limited LLC v. Michael Brown, the case was filed for the infringement of the terms such as Jedi, and Lightsaber. 

Therefore, if we study the global trademark database then we get to know that thousands of Star Wars-related trademarks are owned by Lucasfilm and all the new terms which are unique and creative are protected by the Trademark intellectual property.

Patents

Filing a patent provides protection and a legal right of ownership of a novel invention that has an industrial application.

The cute adorable robots which were called Droids in the Star Wars movie world are considered inventive and innovative. 

The company Sphero filed for Patents in which the movements and mechanisms of BB-8 are given protection, and, also Disney filed patents that involved engaging in a virtual battle involving the lightsabres.

Designs

Generally, it is a simple and inexpensive procedure to get a design registered in the UK. The right of an unregistered design arises automatically when something original is created.

Searching on the global platforms we can see that Lucasfilm is the owner of many creative designs relating to the Star Wars movie which includes the toys for R2-D2 and C3PO.

Copyright

The UK copyright law protects original literary, musical works, sound recordings, and artistic works.

3,489 copyrights have been registered by Lucasfilm since 1978. 

“Darth Vader and Friends” which is a chapter in the book is also copyrighted. The images of characters of R2-D2, Yoda, etc which can be reproduced on mugs or clothes are protected by copyright law in the UK. 

Conclusion

From the above, we can see that the human mind has no boundary between creativity and thoughts. Star Wars is one such movie series that contains an abundance of creativity and out-of-the-box imagination.

Therefore, a crucial role is played by trademark copyright patents and design in protecting, securing, and crafting the journey of Star Wars movies. Intellectual property rights are very valuable to any industry and are the greatest capital asset that helps in protecting the fundamentals of every novel creativity or innovation. 

Thus, as Master Yoda would say: Protect Your Intellectual Property, You Must!

BY-

SONALI JUYAL

2^ND LLB, ILS LAW COLLEGE (PUNE)