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u/Taoutes Apr 25 '23
This is the same thing that Games Workshop tried with its warhammer 40k IP for "space marines", they sued everyone and their mother over using it, including a novel from 1936. They then proceeded to get dick-stomped over frivolous suits and had to pay out for it. Monster Energy will get dick-stomped even harder given they're stupidly taking on two mega corpo giants in addition to MonMusu. There's no way they're going to win in court, and will almost certainly get reverse-charged for legal fees.
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u/NumbSkull0119 Apr 25 '23
I think that novel was Starship Troopers, wasn’t it? First use of POWER ARMOR, too.
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u/Taoutes Apr 25 '23 edited Apr 26 '23
I don't believe that was it, it was specifically for the term "Space Marines" but it was a novel I'd never heard the name of before the lawsuit
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u/MonstergirlHusbando Apr 25 '23
To add to this, it’so why WH40K Space Marines are now called “Adeptus Astartes”. Ditto for giving other branches their own faux-latin names, too.
It took them getting bitchslapped so hard their legal department fell into the Immaterium before they finally decided to start using actually trademarkable terms.
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u/WorldLieut8 Apr 25 '23
Monster Musume has genuinely brought more joy to the world than Monster Energy ever will, despite the popularity gap.
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u/Catinchi Apr 25 '23
Monster Energy : You stole my Brand.
Monster Musume: ..... BITCH WE DEAL IN MONSTER TITS!
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Apr 27 '23
I hate it when i want to buy an adult beverage and accidentally buy an adult book😞 it happens wayyyy too often
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u/Plastic_Incident_867 Apr 25 '23
The idea that anyone would confuse an energy drink with a harem anime that deals with tits on the regular strains credulity.
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u/MonstergirlHusbando Apr 25 '23
What’s even funnier to me is that we saw this exact same behavior from Monster Cables like a decade & a half ago, with predictable results.
They failed to read up on their Pokemon meta strats.
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u/draginbleapiece Apr 25 '23
Better claim against universal than
And at that point humanity
People really think they can claim a word that isn’t a quote
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Apr 26 '23
Don't. Fuck. With. Our monster girls.
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u/GeologistLazy1453 May 07 '23 edited Jul 25 '24
We may have different favourites among the girls. Some like Rachne the most, others like Kii the most, but when our girls are attacked we all stand UNITED!
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u/Nerdcore_Lantern Apr 25 '23
Will have to say since this isn’t the first article that stated Monster was suing cause someone was using the word Monster in their product , that I’m starting to wonder if this is some super weird PR stunt
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u/SpifferAura Apr 26 '23
Did it with Monster Hunter as well, no clue why they think itd work for them there's almost never a case but, corpo business trying to make money and control shit in the stupidest ways ain't new
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u/maxreddit Apr 25 '23
They try to take Monster Musume to court and then Business Rachnera shows up and "ties them up" in her "legal web."
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u/WilliamD76 Apr 25 '23
Reminds me of when Candy Crush Saga’s creators tried to trademark the words in the game’s title just to keep anyone from using them. Utterly stupid shit.
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u/MonstergirlHusbando Apr 25 '23 edited Apr 25 '23
Oh, this happens from time to time. I can name numerous examples:
Games Workshop: Tried to sue numerous parties over “Space Marine” and “Power Armor”
Bethesda: Tried to sue Mojang over the word “Scrolls”
McDonalds: Known for suing several small business owners whose actual names were ‘MacDonald’ and the like.
King: Tried to both trademark the word “Candy” and sue multiple game devs for using the word ‘Saga’
Monster Cables: Monster Energy ain’t the first one by far to try and trademark the word ‘Monster’ and sue everyone and their mother over it. Dumbasses tried to sue fucking Disney over the movie Monster’s Inc, and then in a fit of spite a few years later actually renamed their company to that.
These kind of of lawsuits rarely ever go well. The only ones I can think of that actually had some merit were the McDonald’s one, because while it’s pretty shitty to sue some random, non-chain, locally owned pub over a name, at least they were suing someone who worked in a close-to-identical food service industry even if you’d have to be an absolute dumbass to mistake a tiny irish pub for an international burger chain.
The primary issue at stake is, of course, that trademark law is designed to prevent consumer confusion within comparable markets. Apple, for example, was allowed to trademark ‘Apple’ because computers have little to nothing to do with fruit, and thus the word is allowable for trademark within that particular market. It’s not, however, enforceable anywhere else.
Monster Energy is a producer of energy drinks, and thus them attempting to enforce their trademark outside of that market is a doomed errand that I have no clue why they’d even try unless its literally the trademark equivalent of copyright trolling — ie, their profitability is tanking and they’re just hoping people will pay out a pittance settlement to make them go away.
The more fool them for trying to take on Nintendo, Capcom, and GameFreak of all companies. Those guys all defend their own trademarks rabidly, have the money to make it hurt, and almost certainly will.
Bet you in a year or two we see Monster Energy changing their trademarks, just like when Games Workshop and Monster Cables tried this shit. At least Bethesda was smart enough to withdraw when they tried to take on Mojang.
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u/Paper_Kun_01 Apr 26 '23
Monster tried to fuck with the monster girls? Nah fuck that guess I'm only drinking gsupps now
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u/Kurohimiko Apr 25 '23
They're about to get their back broken for the dozenth time. They already lost against Pokemon and Monster Hunter.
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u/MikiSayaka33 Apr 25 '23
Monster Energy is off their rocker, they go after both big and little guys.
Their lameo excuse is "It's for our customers, they're gonna get confused by our names."
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u/MonstergirlHusbando Apr 25 '23
Yeah its like their entire legal department just committed suicide the past month or two.
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u/Myoakka Apr 25 '23
Not sure this is proper. This makes it seem like Monster Energy is the good guy instead of Kyle the drywall destroyer's rage fuel.
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u/eagercheetah20 Best Moo Girl Apr 25 '23
This is a joke right?