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Star Wars Day

The empire and IP

May the force be with you! Fans around the world celebrate Star Wars Day on May 4. Why on this particular date? Well, the pronunciation of the date "May the 4th" is very similar to the beginning of the most popular phrase from the space saga, "May the force be with you". Incidentally, the phrase has been registered as a word mark since 2020 (EM018300364).

The play on words was supposedly first made on the occasion of Margaret Thatcher (...the dark side?!) coming to power on May 4, 1979. For years now, May 4 has established itself as a day of celebration for the global fan community. Only the city of Los Angeles celebrates on May 25 - in memory of the premiere of the first film in the series there in 1977.

Since then, Star Wars has developed into one of the most commercially successful film series in the world (the rival sci-fi series Star Trek can't quite keep up). Thanks to ever new spin-offs such as series, books and games, the empire continues to grow.
The socio-cultural influence of the space fairy tale is also hard to overestimate; its popularity and spread probably surpasses even James Bond, Harry Potter or the Marvel superheroes.

Billions in sales thanks to IP

At first, no one expected it to ever get this far - except perhaps George Lucas. The director, writer and producer accommodated the film studio with his fee for the first "Star Wars" film in 1977, but secured extensive merchandising rights. As the unprecedented success of the first film became apparent, Lucas operated with all suitable commercial property rights: Among other things, he had toy figures of protagonists, robots and spaceships protected and their names registered as trademarks.

Over the years, Lucas, his production company Lucasfilm and other partners brought a sheer flood of merchandising products onto the market. Not least thanks to a clever property rights strategy, merchandising for the films is estimated to have generated over 70 billion dollars by 2018. This would make Star Wars the most successful film franchise in the world.

Well-protected heroes

The heroes of the saga are thoroughly protected by industrial property rights. The figure of Master Yoda, for example, was registered as a design under the number US265754S. The sinister Darth Vader is registered as a three-dimensional Union trademark(EM 005896601), as is the design of the Imperial "strom trooper"(EM005896311). There is also the word mark for "Lord Darth Vader" (DE 990370) as well as for his opponent Obi-Wan Kenobi DE 39609975. Almost all Skywalker family members are protected by trademark law, such as Shmi (DE 39609849) and Anakin (DE 39609976).

Lucasfilm had temporarily registered "Princess Leia" as a trademark in Nice Class 21, i.e. for combs, sponges, brushes, etc. (DE1074340; 1984-2004). The character names from the more recent films are of course also protected as trademarks for various merchandising goods classes, such as "Poe Dameron" (EM018300375, Nice classes 16, 25, 28) or "Kylo Ren" (EM014355986). The name of the popular "Baby Yoda" from "The Mandalorian", Grogu, is also a registered trademark(EM018345670).

The studio also secured property rights for toys

However, Lucas was unable to secure the intellectual property rights for some of the most popular figures and devices: the design for the cute, beeping robot "R2D2", for example, was registered by the studio Twentieth Century Fox ( US251628S), as was the "X-Wing" spaceship of the rebels ( US250480S). The studio also registered the design of the Empire's small fighter spaceships ("Toy spacecraft", US254081S). However, as Twentieth Century now also belongs to Disney, the rights are once again in one (corporate) hand.

Well protected galactically successful

In global marketing, Lucas did not fail to secure the German pronunciation of his characters at the DPMA, for example as the word marks "Erzwo-Dezwo R2D2"(DE-Marke 971997) or "Ce-Dreipeo C3PO" (DE-Marke 396099718). The famous "Star Wars" lettering was also secured in German as a word/figurative mark (DE971996).

Even grotesque or cute secondary characters, who are only seen for a few moments in the films, were brought onto the market as game figures with design protection, such as "Jabba the Hutt"( US 277211S) or a musical blue animal called "Max Rebo" ( US 277883S).Not forgetting the imaginative machines such as the elephant-like battle robot "Imperial Runner AT-AT" ( US266777S), which countless children used to re-enact the battle of the "dark side" against the Jedi.

Strangely enough, the most famous spaceship in the universe does not seem to be protected: the "Millenium Falcon". Although there is an English word mark (EM018300370), the shape has apparently not been registered as a design. Funnily enough, framed art prints with "fake" US patents for the "Millenium Falcon" can be bought online, while other (design) patents offered for the "Imperial Fighter" (US254081S) or the "AT-AT" are genuine.

Bad feeling about this?

George Lucas sold his company and the rights to Star Wars to Disney in 2012. Since then, the entertainment giant has ensured that the universe continues to expand. The Star Wars makers have remained true to their successful property rights strategy to this day: The title of the last feature film for the time being, "The Rise of Skywalker", was also registered as a Union Trademark (EM018051545), as were all the others. Of course, more recent spin-offs such as the series "The Mandalorian" (including EM017965280), "The Book of Boba Fett" (including EM018386086) and "Ashoka"(EM018352872) are also protected under trademark law.

Lucasfilm went one step further when it even registered sayings and quotes from the Star Wars universe as a trademark: "I`ve got a bad feeling about this", a phrase that appears as a running gag in all films, has been registered as a European Union trademark since 2018 (EM017480435). "Jump to lightspeed" has been a registered word mark since 2004(EM004050209).

If you want to know what could come next from the Star Wars creators, take a look at Lucasfilm's trademark applications in DPMAregister. The most recent applications there include "The Acolyte"(EM018352876), the title of a new TV series from the Star Wars universe.

After several TV series from the Star Wars universe have been launched in recent years ("Obi-Wan Kenobi", "Andor") and the corresponding trademarks (EM018352869, EM018352873) have been registered in advance, the latest series spin-off to be shown at Disney this year is "Skeleton Crew".

Disney is also planning to release three more Star Wars feature films in cinemas in the coming years.

Constant innovations from the technical bag of tricks

Lucasfilm has not only perfected the commercial exploitation of its films, but is also constantly driving cinematic animation technology forward. For years, the company has reliably registered numerous patents in the field of computer graphics/CGI, most recently "Motion capture using synchronized and aligned devices"( US020230336679A1 (2,45 MB)), "System and techniques for patch colour correction" ( US000011887251B2 (6 MB)) or "Latency reduction for immersive content production systems" ( US020240096035A1 (2,41 MB)).

"Light capture device" ( US020220342488A (5,88 MB)), "Immersive content production system with multiple targets" ( US020220005279A1 (2,42 MB)) or "Breakaway mocap Tracker" ( US020220067948A1)are also among the company's more recent applications.

Lucasfilm currently holds an impressive 380 entries in the DPMA patent database DEPATISnet (as of 20.04.2024).

Use the force!

The fact that a great deal of research and development has gone into the films is also apparent. Critics sometimes complain that the makers focus too much on visual effects, technical tricks and excessive merchandising instead of on plot and dramaturgy. They would perhaps reply, "This is the way." At least they had this sentence (a quote from "The Mandalorian") secured as a word mark (EM018258235) in 2020...

Text: Dr. Jan Björn Potthast; Pictures: DPMAregister, DEPATISnet

Last updated: 9 December 2024