Hatrack River Writers Workshop: help me out if you can

This is topic help me out if you can in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Monolith (Member # 2034) on :

I have a story that I have written before...but I have it going towards the whole comic book genre anti-hero ( the main character ) but I have a hard time describing his powers without calling them that...( because Marvel has the drop on superpowers ) and I want to avoid a catastrophe with trademarked phrases...any suggestions on how to go by that?

Posted by punahougirl84 (Member # 1731) on :

Welcome Monolith

Wow, Marvel trademarked 'superpowers'? Impressive - seems too generic, but I guess I don't know everything about it.

I would hit up your thesaurus for 'super' and 'power' and see what kind of combinations you get. Not that you may want 'megatalent' but it will give you several options to play with. Also, depending on the powers your anti-hero has, you can be more specific: superstrength, x-ray vision, buns of steel...

Posted by Balthasar (Member # 5399) on :

quote:
I have a hard time describing his powers without calling them that...

Then you better start learning how to be more descriptive. Even if the word "superpower" wasn't trademarked, you can't call them that and get away with it for very long. It's too abstract. You have to be able to describe it so that we can see it.

Anyway, why does this matter? EVERYONE knows what superpowers are, and I'd bet you could write an entire novel without once calling them that and you'd confuse no one.

Posted by Gen (Member # 1868) on :

Marvel and DC trademarked "Superhero" back in the 80s. There's a nice discussion of it on Theresa Nielsen Hayden's blog here.

But given that there's a number of other people using the word in published stuff, I'd say you'd certainly be able to get away with superpowers, assuming you stayed away from "superhero" proper.

Assuming you wanted to get away with superpowers, of course, deferring to the man with the big pointy POV stick.

[This message has been edited by Gen (edited June 01, 2004).]

Posted by Pyre Dynasty (Member # 1947) on :

Gift, Talent, strength, skill, allowance, magic, expression, breath, Soul(any of previous words), when in doubt make up words, projection, protraction, projectile, Corpeltion, Fingerlicking good, Hippolatolis, oatmeal, dang I hate oatmeal, Cheese, yes cheese is good.

So your telling me I'm posting? Okay I can help. Read the dictionary. Try decribing what they do rather than what they are.
Ex: "He shot a bolt of lightning at his foe."
as opposed to
"He used his power to make his opponent get hit by lightning."

Or: "Bobby (names have been changed to deflect the innocent) soon realized that he could do increadible things...like shooting lightning and turning people into frogs.

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

It is as I feared.

Posted by Phanto (Member # 1619) on :

Bobby raised his finger, dragging the lightning into the tip. Once enough piled up, he let it zip forth in a vivid stream, oddly reminiscent of Star Wars. It hit the Terrorist Thug in the arm, burning the flesh, cutting through it with electrical precision. He fell to the ground, his Nuclear Rocket Launcher (NiRK) skittering away.

Another blast of electrical love took care of the NiRK.

"Take that," Bobby shouted. "One more victory for freedom!"

The Terrorist groaned, struggling to stand up.

To be continued...

[This message has been edited by Phanto (edited June 01, 2004).]

Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :

I didn't know superhero and superpower were trademarked. What does that mean in terms of legality, though? I'm not really clearn on what a trademark entitles you to do with a word or, more precisely, what it keeps other people from doing with it. Anyone actually know that?

I've been working on a novella-length piece on and off with people with superpowers...but I never once called them that, it never even occurred to me. I called them what they wree, in this kase teleportaiton and pyrokinesis. I called them gifts and mutants and even powers at some points, but not superpowers. I called the characters heroes but not superheroes. I think the super was implied and came accross like a bad adjective that isn't necessary. It is better to describe things with strong nouns and verbs than adjectives anyway.

But still, if anyone understands that trademark law, I'd love to know about it..

Posted by Jules (Member # 1658) on :

A trademark means you can't use the word to sell something in the same or similar market. Novels probably count as a similar enough market to comic books.

But: if you can make an argument that a trademark hasn't been adequately protected, you can get away with using it. If the owner of a trademark lets other people get away with it, and are aware of this, and have no legal agreement with them, then it can form a basis to get the trademark cancelled.

Trademarks certainly don't give you rights over the concepts involved, only the specific names you give them, and any designs that are used to represent them.

Posted by Nexus Capacitor (Member # 1694) on :

TSR trademarked the word "elf" among other common mythological words and M&M/Mars trademarked "m".

These kinds of silly trademarks never hold up in court. I don't think you need to worry about it. "Superpowers" and "superhero" should be safe to use. Stay away from using Superman, Batman, Spiderman, etc., because you will get slammed there.

Balthasar is right, though. If you describe the particular talent, you won't need to use "superpowers" at all. Some examples: Telekinesis, telepathy, teleportation, pyrokinesis, hydrokinesis, geokinesis, lactokinesis, etc.

Posted by Balthasar (Member # 5399) on :

quote:
TSR trademarked the word "elf" among other common mythological words....

How the hell can they trademark words found in every dictionary long before they were even around?

Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :

How can companies register patents on technology that already exists and they have nothing to do with? The world is a strange place, especially when you introduce bureaucracy and money into it.

Posted by EricJamesStone (Member # 1681) on :

quote:
How the hell can they trademark words found in every dictionary long before they were even around?

There's a lot of misunderstanding about what is protected by a trademark. People (and companies) sometimes go overboard in registering trademarks because they think it will allow them to stop anyone else from using a word without their permission, when it will not.

Trademarks exist to prevent confusion over the source of products. If the likelihood of confusion is slim to none, then it's generally not considered a violation of the trademark.

For example, nobody is going to mistakenly buy a package of cookies with a picture of a Keebler elf on them because they thought the elf meant it was a TSR product. So TSR would not succeed in a trademark suit against Keebler.

Using the terms "superhero" and "superpowers" in the text of a novel would be fine. See this web page, which does a great job of explaining the issue: http://briefs.toddverbeek.com/archives/000152.html

Posted by Pyre Dynasty (Member # 1947) on :

Superman was an idea by Neitzche (sorry if I've switched my Philosophers I can't keep them straight.)

Donald trump Trademarked "Your Fired," That doesn't mean it isn't heard by slacker employees every day. He was even sued over it, by some lady who owned a pottery store of the same name. She didn't win but she didn't need to change the name.
In a related story, A few years ago in Austrailia a guy patented the wheel. There were no patens for it, so he got it. Someone told him not to reinvent the wheel. He went after Car companies bike companies, anything with a wheel. He didn't win but it was funny

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

Actually, Nietzsche's Ubermensch means "over-being" more than it means "super-man". The translation into English used the masculine term rather than the neuter and used super...which would have been fine but later evolved with implications actually opposite the original meaning.

Anyway, Nietzsche didn't coin the English term "superman" as far as I know. I have to look that up now...Wow!

Apparently, Superman was originally a villian based on Nietzsche's Ubermensch. When that didn't sell, the creators repackaged him as a hero, keeping his extraordinary powers and name, but jettisoning everything else about him, including his Nietzschean ideals.

Posted by Pyre Dynasty (Member # 1947) on :

Nice work, so I was kinda right. My reserch comes from an episode of Histeria. THanks for clearing that up.