Peace In The Universe After Fans and Owners of Star Trek Settled IP Kerfuffle

Finally, a relatively happy ending to this Star Trek kerfuffle where the owners of the Star Trek franchise (Paramount and CBS) took Axanar Production (an independent film company created by a massive trekie) to court for allegedly infringing the various Star Trek related IPRs.

Following a successful launch of its 20 minutes fan-man clip ‘Prelude to Axanar’ in 2014, Axanar had intended to go boldly where no man has gone before by creating a 90 minutes fan-made movie as a tribute to the Star Trek franchise. After a stellar crowdfunding campaign which raised around $640,000, Axanar proceeded with preproduction, acquiring numerous high end props and costumes.

However, all these did not go down well with the owners of Star Trek, even though Axanar had garnered the support of actor George Takei (who played Captain Sulu), JJ Abrams and Justin Lin (directors and producers of the recent remakes). Paramount and CBS  proceeded to launch a lawsuit at the Federal Court of California claiming a slew of IPRs infringement. Nevertheless, Axanar refused to back down as understandably in their own mind they would have thought that ‘damn it, I’m a fan, not a bootlegging infringer’.

Fearing a massive backlash by its innumerable pointy eared fans, the owners finally saw that any resistance is futile and so decided to set their phaser to stun instead of giving it all she’s got (3 references in one sentence! Boom!). And so a settlement was agreed by both parties. Instead of a 90 minute movie, Axanar would instead make two 15 minutes clip which they will beam up to YouTube without any advertisements. Hopefully now that Axanar has got a ‘Make it so’ from Star Trek’s owners, both parties can finally live long and prosper.

For further details of the settlement see: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/21/movies/star-trek-axanar-fan-film-paramount-cbs-settlement.html?referer=http://www.google.com/

Lost In Transliteration

A couple of weeks ago while out walking, I was approached by a burly hooded man who then proceeded to roll up his sleeve. As if that wasn’t scary enough, he said (quite loudly) in a gruff voice “Oi mate! you Chinese?“. Not that I have anything against robust men with questionable fashion sense who are in the habit of asking random strangers their ethnic/racial background while rolling up his sleeve, but where I’m from, those are not usually the signs that someone is in for a quick friendly chat about the weather. Anyhow, it turns out the man had just wanted me to ‘spell-check‘ a tattoo on his forearm that he’s picked up in Weston-super-Mare of what he thought was the transliterated name of his ‘lady friend‘ in Chinese characters. Unfortunately, while the artist had gotten the transliteration spot on (i.e. “sir-dha-fay”), the Chinese characters he had chosen are not exactly flattering. Unless the lady friend happened to be one of his dreadful exes, I doubt Stephie would appreciate his gentleman friend’s permanent display of affection which translates as ‘dead fatso’ (“死大肥” for those who read Chinese).

That is a common problem with Chinese transliteration, as written Chinese consists of over 50,000 characters, and everyone of these character can individually convey a specific meaning, yet many of the characters are homophones – i.e. numerous characters correspond to the same sounding syllable (like how the word ‘new’ and ‘knew’ in English are phonetically identical). With that in mind, a three syllable English word can have hundreds or even thousands of permutations when it is being transliterated into Chinese. Unsurprisingly, many of these combinations can turn out to be less than flattery.

While this lost in transliteration thing may be a little embarrassing to the odd hapless romantic, it is quite a branding headache to companies that are looking to enter into the Chinese market where most consumers are not English speakers and would only recognise a foreign brand by its Chinese transliteration. The common thing for these companies to do before heading into the market is to choose a transliteration, perhaps with the help of some local branding professionals. While this is no doubt a good practice, businesses should know that it is by no means infallible. Coca-Cola, one of the most valuable brands in the world, did not get its Chinese branding quite right the first time round. For some reason, the Chinese consumers did not quite warm to the original transliteration of “蝌蝌啃蜡” which elegantly conjures up images of tadpoles choking on wax. Nevertheless, Coke’s second attempt has been recognised as a branding coup. The rebranding of Coke as “可口可乐” which means ‘deliciously happy’ helped to uncap the Chinese mass market for Coke making it one of the most recognised foreign brand in China. Another much quoted example is the case of Viagra, where the Chinese consumers prefer their own wink wink nudge nudge transliteration of “伟哥” (pronounced ‘way-gir’ and meaning ‘a mighty brother/fellow’) over the decidedly more boring officially sanctioned “万艾可” (pronounced ‘wan-ai-ke’). Unfortunately, Pfizer caught on too late and the locally spawned transliteration was registered as trademark by various Chinese entities. Ironically, the international megapharma was prevented from using the name that was made famous by its best selling drug.

The years-long legal suits between His Royal Airness Michael Jordan and Qiao Dan, a Chinese sports equipment company should also serve as a cautionary tale to businesses that are planning to go global, especially if China is a potential destination. The fact is, you can’t afford to wait until you’re about to set sail to register your transliterated trademark in China. By then it will probably be too late as trademark squatters (or worse, a counterfeiter) would have moved in to register the trademark and you’ll have to face a lengthy uphill battle to attempt to regain your trademark. However, there is no guarantee that you will eventually reclaim your trademark even though the other party’s trademark registration was not made with the best of intentions. For instance, while the Chinese Supreme Court has recently ruled in favour of Michael Jordan and preventing Qiao Dan from using the transliteration of Jordan i.e. 乔丹 (pronounced as ‘chee-ow-done’) as its trademark (see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-38246196), Pfizer has yet to rise to the occasion (if you pardon the pun) in their various law suits against the impostors.

Milking A Giant Radioactive Lizard

I tend to limit my interactions with the fairer sex to “hello” and “goodbye”. Sometimes, if I’m bold enough, I may venture a little further to remark on the current or projected meteorological developments. But that is as far out to sea as I would go in terms of conversation with the ladies. Compliments are definitely a no go. This I’ve learnt the hard way. I was once “advised” (several contusions and fractured ribs) by my colleague that some ladies (herself included) do not necessarily appreciate being compared to Godzilla, regardless of how tall they are.

In hind sight, I do see how a lady might take offence at being likened to a monstrous radioactive reptile. However, in my defence, at the time I honestly believed that most people should happily embrace the moniker. Because for all its scaly flabby unprepossessing features, its penchant for wanton property destruction, its complete disregard for human life, and not to mention its general unpleasantness, there is no denying that Godzilla is one of the world’s most bankable superstars. Godzilla has thus far heaped destruction in 29 movies in Japan. Stateside, Godzilla made landfall in 1956, starring in the Hollywood produced Godzilla, King of the Monsters!. This was followed by three more movies in 1985, 1998 and 2014, all of which roped in hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office. In fact, Godzilla’s stardom is not limited to celluloid, it also starred in several long running television series, innumerable comic books and electronic games, making it a worldwide pop culture phenomenon with tons of merchandises.

With all these publicity and media appearances, if Godzilla were flesh and blood, it would most definitely be one of the richest celebrities. Unfortunately for Godzilla (fortunately for all humanity), it is only a fictional character and will never see a penny of its hard-earned cash. Instead, with an array of intellectual property rights covering multiple aspects of the character, its creator – Toho is the one profiting from the spoils of the monster’s desolation. Toho’s ginormous IP portfolio on Godzilla includes copyright to the design of Godzilla and its various monster co-stars. Even the distinctive roar of the monster is subject to copyright protection. Toho also owns numerous trademarks relating to Godzilla internationally, covering everything from the words “GODZILLA” and “ZILLA”, to the designs and representations of the monster itself.

To defend its intellectual goldmine, Toho has a team of lawyers every bit as ferocious as the monster they are protecting. In 1985, Warner Bros. was singed by Toho for including a Godzilla look-alike in the movie Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, settling the case for an undisclosed amount. In 2002, a US vintner was reduced to a pile of rubble as they were made to destroy its inventory of “CABZILLA” cabernet sauvignon which featured the image of a roaring Godzilla holding a glass of wine on its label. The following year, vendors at the Yankee Stadium were side-swiped by Godzilla’s lawyers for selling inflatable Godzilla replicas in honour of Yankees’ player Hideki Matsui, whose nickname is in fact “Godzilla”. In 2008, ten years after Godzilla ripped apart the New York subway, its lawyers took a bite out of sandwich giant Subway, demanding USD 150,000 in compensation for featuring a Godzilla-like dinosaur in its TV commercial. Even Toho’s compatriot was not spared. HONDA was sued not once but twice, in 1992 for flying a giant Godzilla float in the New Year’s Rose Parade and in 2011 for showing a seconds-long footage of a fire-breathing Godzilla in its commercial.

It is safe to say that while there is still atomic breath in monster’s lungs, Toho will continue to milk its ferocious behemoth for all its worth. And for anyone who even dares to think about getting on the bad side of the radioactive reptilia, consider the ungodly fire and brimstone that its lawyers will rain down upon you.

Trademarks Rated (R)

“Do you want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing”, said Brook Shields in a commercial for Calvin Klein’s jeans, referring to the lack of barrier between her and her jeans. The advert, dirty in both sense of the word (what happened to personal hygiene?), was nevertheless a commercial triumph, fueling the daydreams of adolescent boys (or girls) for much of the 80s and cementing the status of Calvin Klein as a stellar designer. What can we say? Sex sells…

It is not only our adverts that are getting progressively more “suggestive”. Not wanting to miss out on the easy publicity, trademarks have joined in the fray, leading to trademarks that are evermore inappropriate and downright salacious. And boy have we moved on from the 80s. In fact, some trademarks are designed with extreme shock value in mind. In the 90s, the unabashedly controversial trademark of French Connection United Kingdom, better known as “FCUK”, was once described by an English Judge as “tasteless and obnoxious” and “just a euphemism” for an obscene expletive. However, the tongue-in-cheek trademark and branding campaign struck a chord with young people and sales skyrocketed. In fact, the Judge did FCUK a favour. What’s cooler than wearing a brand that is loathed and despised by Judges who are normally seen by deviant youths as “fat, balding, Tory, Home Counties, upper-middle-class twits” (thank you Bridget Jones for putting it so succinctly). A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon “FUCKOFFEE” in Bermondsey while rummaging through the Street Festival. I am sure it is not a descriptive trademark…or is it?

While the above trademarks were clearly chosen with shock and awe in mind, there are companies whose prurient trademarks could only be explained as a branding faux-pas, a result of dire chance and fateful cockup or a total failure of due diligence. For example, in Brazil the name for Ford’s sub-compact car “PINTO” is a reference to the gentleman’s bits (particularly one of mediocre stature). Meanwhile, wearing a “SPUNK” sportswear from Indian is likely to turn the heads of most English speakers, albeit for the wrong reasons. Eager to avoid similar gaffes, four years prior to  the opening of their first store in Thailand, IKEA employed language experts to analyse their numerous trademarks and product names to ensure that they do not offend the locals. The results of the extensive exercise saw the removal of the name “Redalen” (meaning getting to third-base) from its bedroom department and the name “Jättebra” (meaning going the whole nine yards) from its garden range, perhaps fearing that its frisky customers would decide to take up on the offers in its stores.

All this goes to show that getting lost in translation is only ever romantic in movies. Not convinced? How about drinking a Ghanaian “Pee Cola”, burying your face in a “MEGAPUSSI” of Finnish crisps or eating some IKEA meat balls straight out of your “Bol-Lock” hecho en Mexico zipper bag?