History Main / WritingAroundTradeMarks

* A {{Batman}}/[[ThePunisher Punisher]] crossover introduced a villain who later turned up in ''{{Nightwing}}''. The writers dealt with the "where I met this guy before" story by having Nightwing have a rare memory lapse about 'the other guy' ("Out-of-town psycho vigilante. Want to say 'the Puncturer'?")

* This trope is ''gloriously'' averted, along with NoCelebritiesWereHarmed, in ''{{Emogame}}'', with TV shows, brand names and celebrities being called out and [[TakeThat skewered]] by name. It's a wonder that Jason Oda not only hasn't been sued, but is now being hired to make advergames for many of these companies.

* ''TheVentureBros'' was to originally take place in the same universe as ''JohnnyQuest'', but Hanna-Barbera objected after the first season. So now it still technically does, but all of the ''Johnny Quest'' characters have had their names changed, or otherwise not brought up.

* A {{Batman}}/[[ThePunisher Punisher]] crossover introduced a villain who later turned up in ''Nightwing''. The writers dealt with the "where I met this guy before" story by having Nightwing have a rare memory lapse about 'the other guy' ("Out-of-town psycho vigilante. Want to say 'the Puncturer'?")

* When trying to provide a cliche name for the chain diner in GhostWorld Terry Zwigoff and Daniel Clowes had to go through a couple dozen possibilities before they found one not currently in use by a real restaurant.

** This caused a bit of {{irony}}. To promote the book Max Barry created the browser game NationStates, where one of the sub forums was called the UnitedNations. That is, it was. After the real UnitedNations sent a cease and desist letter it is now called the World Assembly. On his blog, Barry talked about the irony of never being sued for the book. He suspects the UN[[YoureJustJealous is just jealous of his UN actually being able to get things done.]]

* Another weird meta-example happens in the PrincessBride. Goldman, who allegedly is abridging Morgenstern's classic novel, interupts the narrative from time to time to explain why he was cutting stuff out. The Miracle Max scene involves Fezzik and Inigo having to go get certain ingredients for the miracle pill, and Goldman explains that it feels a little like the Wizard of Oz making Dorothy go get the Wicked Witch's broom, but that the original version of the PrincessBride actually predates the WizardOfOz, so, although it was ''really'' Baum ripping of Morgenstern, it comes off the other way round.

* The MythBusters once tested some tropes associated with Nocturnal-Echo-Locating-Flying-Mammal-Man.

* When Greg Stafford brought a new game system (no longer Rune Quest) to Glorantha (with the help of Robin Laws), he wanted to name it [=HeroQuest=] based on the mighty mythical quests people went on to gain power. Unfortunately, the [=HeroQuest=] board game was still under trademark, and so Hero Wars came out instead. (Eventually, the trademarked lapsed and now there is a [=HeroQuest=] RPG, although it is generic and not limited to Glorantha.)

** The FightingFantasy gamebook series pulled a similar trick with its own versions of the mind flayers. To get around the TSR trademark, Ian Livingstone called his equivalents "Brain Slayers."

* Interestingly when Justice League writers created a character call Ichthultu, they only did this because they were unaware that Cthulu was a PublicDomainCharacter.
** Not according to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft#Copyright Arkham House Publishers Inc.]], which was one of the reasons TheRealGhostbusters episode homaging Lovecraft's works called the monster "Cathulhu".

** Specifically, there was an arcade game called ''Monsters in my Pocket''.

* Interestingly when Justice League writers created a character call Ichthultu, they only did this because they were unaware that Cthulu was a PublicDomain character.

* TheKinks' "Lola", in some of its releases, alters the line "when you drink champagne and it tastes just like Coca-Cola" to "cherry cola" because the BBC wouldn't play the song if it mentioned a commercial product. The band had to interrupt an American tour so the alternate version could be recorded.
** ChuckBerry's "Maybelline" suffered the same fate.

* In 2006, the supergroup Supernova was formed after picking a lead singer via the reality show / singing competition ''Rock Star''. However, an already-existing band of that name (best known for "Chewbacca" from the ''{{Clerks}}'' soundtrack) was granted an injunction against them. Since they couldn't entirely abandon a name that was already so heavily promoted, the band named themselves after their season of the show and became Rock Star Supernova.

* Likewise Jefferson Airhead, who ran into trouble with JeffersonStarship and became simply Airhead.

** BBV also produced a series of audio dramas starring Sylvester [=McCoy=] and SophieAldred as "The Professor" and "Ace" ("Professor" had been Ace's nickname for The Doctor). The BBC did not find this sufficient, so they were eventually renamed The Dominie and Alice.

* As Wham-O ''still'' owns the trademark on the word "Frisbee", this has led to several entities having to dodge the term.
** The makers of ''TheSecretOfNIMH'' had to change the main character's name from the original Frisby to Brisby.
** ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode ''A Tale of Two Springfields'' has Bart refer to a "Novelty Flying Disc".
** This was played with a bit in ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'', where [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick decide to play a game of Small Plastic Disk That You Throw (Small Plastic Disk That You Toss for short).
** Pretty much any non-Wham-O entities who seek to sell or distribute their own version of a tossable pie-tin has to do this. ''Summer Fun Disc'' is what Burger King called the toy in its ([[FollowTheLeader equivalent of]]) "Happy Meals" in the 1990s.
*** And don't dare call those chocolate sandwich cookies "Oreos"...

* ''ProjectSuperpowers'' makes ample use of Golden Age superheroes who have long since lapsed into the public domain. However, though the characters themselves are public domain, in several cases their ''names'' are owned by DC or Marvel. This necessitates referring to Daredevil as "'Devil", Yellowjacket as "Jack", the Blue Beetle as "Big Blue", and so forth.

* In the late 1990s, VinceMcMahon had the brilliant idea to introduce a wrestling vampire named Gangrel. It was a great idea...that White Wolf already had when making the Gangrel vampire clan in ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade''. Wrestling/{{WWE}} (then the WWF) was able to get a deal that kept his name for the small token of putting White Wolf's name at the beginning of every broadcast (and video game) he appeared in.

*** Must have used all their Mentioning Taboo Points when they gave an entry to ChrisBenoit.
* That wasn't the first such occurrence of this trope for what was once the World Wrestling Federation. Vince's star performer for many years was originally billed as "The Incredible HulkHogan". Of course, Marvel Comics had a few not-entirely-pleasant things to say about that. Ever since then, Marvel Comics has had joint ownership of the HulkHogan trademark.
** Which is why, when WCW hired Hogan in the mid-'90s, they used the New World Order angle to change his full ring name to "Hollywood" HulkHogan; the announcers routinely just dropped the "Hulk" part of his name and called him "Hollywood Hogan", which meant Marvel didn't see as many royalties.
*** A similar incident ocurred with WCW, who introduced a character called "[[SpiderMan Arachniman]]", who dressed in a yellow-and-purple colored costume. Needless to say, Marvel was not amused.
* Since the advent of TNA and the various independent promotions in the United States, the names of wrestlers who jump ship from one promotion to another can often change because of trademark claims. One of the most famous subversions of this is Jay Reso: while employed by WWE, he was known as {{Christian}}. When he left the company, thanks to owning the trademark to his pre-WWE name -- Christian Cage -- he was able to use that name elsewhere. (When he returned to WWE, he dropped the "Cage" and went back to just "Christian".) Other examples:
** When the Dudley Boys went to TNA, they were forced to give up the Dudley name because WWE owned practically every ECW-related trademark and copyright; they became Team 3D (named after their finisher, which was originally called the Dudley Death Drop). Bubba Ray and Devon became Brother Ray and Brother Devon, and (during his brief stint in the company) Little Spike Dudley became Brother Runt.
** TNA does this with some incoming wrestlers in order to be able to exclusively own the trademark to a ring name (in some cases, this also allows a wrestler to keep their independent circuit ring name). Amusingly enough, the best examples of this were all part of their women's division: Awesome Kong (Amazing Kong elsewhere), Velvet Sky and Angelina Love (Talia Madison and Angel Williams, respectively), Madison Rayne (Lexi Lane or Ashley Lane), and Roxxi Laveaux (Nikki Roxx).

** Like the aforementioned Dudley Boys, almost all of TNA's August 2010 Pay-Per-View Hardcore Justice is filled with WritingAroundTrademarks. To name a few examples, the {{ECW}} alumni are always referred to as EV 2.0, the promotion they became famous in is referred to only as "the Philadelphia promotion", wrestler Justin Credible is referred to only as P.J Polaco (his real name), and two members of the FBI (which they interestingly were able to use) were called "Tony Luke" (Tony Mamaluke) and Guido Maritato (Little Guido in ECW).
* A quickly resolved trademark dispute (apparently initiated by former promoter Jim Crockett) led to WWE briefly referring to RicFlair as "Rick Flair."
* An interesting reverse is the case of one of WCW main faces Wrestler/{{Sting}}, Steve Borden had actually purchased the trademark before the more widely known singer had. This means that every performance the singer gives he has to pay a royalty to Borden for use of the name (Steve isn't a dick about it and its apparently a token amount like 1$)
* KurtAngle's finisher was originally called the Olympic Slam. Eventually, it became known as the Angle Slam.
* Billy Jack was required to change his name to Billy Haynes, and eventually Billy Jack Haynes, after Tom Laughlin threatened legal action for using the same name as Laughlin's movie character. The in universe explanation was that Billy wanted to honor his father's name once he won the Pacific Northwest title.

** After the release of ''Quest for Glory III: Wages of War'', Sierra's legal team found out that another videogame company had already trademarked the title "Wages of War." So Sierra made plans to reissue the game as ''Seekers of the Lost City'' (a nod to ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk''). Before the re-release was completed, though, the company that had trademarked ''Wages of War'' closed its doors. While [=QFG3=] was never released with the new name, the [=QFG4=] in-game documentation uses the revised [=QFG3=] title in its descriptions of the prior installments.

** Sometimes they do both: the latest figure of the character once known as Thunder was called "Sgt. Thunderblast". A few years later, a figure of "Dreadnok Thunder" came out (based on a character previous called Thrasher) -- apparently even "Sgt. Thunder" didn't pass trademark. Or "Dreadnok Thrasher", for that matter.

* Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse has a weird meta-example. TalesOfTheJedi comic series featured a story arc ''The Tale of Nomi Sunrider'' and the eponymous character went off to become pretty important (as in "Head of the Jedi Order in the current era"-important), as did her relatives. However, a real-life company came up with a claim for "Sunrider" and Lucasfilm reacted enough for some legal issues to arise. For the following years Sunrider family was pretty much forgotten and most notably suspiciously absent from the KnightsOfTheOldRepublic video game, which references about everything else from the TOTJ series. (Most prominently, the character eventually named Bastila Shan was originally supposed to be Vima Sunrider, an established character from TOTJ.) Lately, however, Lucasfilm clarified that the agreement was reached that allowed Sunriders to appear and be mentioned within stories themselves, as long as the name does not appear in the title of the work in any way.

* ''ProjectSuperpowers'' makes ample use of Golden Age superheroes who have long since lapsed into the public domain. However, in the case of the Golden Age Blue Beetle and the Golden Age Daredevil, they aren't allowed to use those names freely, as the names themselves are owned by DC and Marvel respectively. Daredevil is referred to on covers and in titles as "The Death-Defying 'Devil", whereas the Blue Beetle is simply called "Big Blue" everywhere.

* A similar issue to ''My Little Pony'''s Big Mac happened with the [[CutAndPasteTranslation Cut and Paste Dub]] of ''{{Tugs}}'', ''Salty's Lighthouse''. [[GeniusBruiser Big]] [[BonnieScotland Mac's]] name was [[ClumsyCopyrightCensorship blacked-out]] and he was referred to as "Big Stack".

* ''Manga/LupinIII'' was renamed to Edgar when the series aired in France because of complaints from the estate of Maurice Leblanc, the author of the original ''ArseneLupin'' stories. The trademark problems are also notoriously the reason for why the show never came to the US for so long. The few Lupin films that did leak out of Japan substituted names like "[[SpellMyNameWithAnS Rupan]]" and "Wolf" to get around it.

* An in-universe, {{Lampshaded}} example occurs in the ''{{Robot Chicken}}'' sketch "We Are The Victors", depicting U.S. Libertarian Party conventions in various years. The speakers would pep up their crowd by predicting victory, but then due to not getting copywrite permissions from various artists, would play a very similar substitute song--such as "We Are The Victors" (for {{Queen}}'s "We Are The Champions"), "We Are a Close-Knit Group" (for {{Sister Sledge}}'s "We Are Family"), "Friend Choo-Choo" (for {{The Ojays}}' "Love Train"), etc.

* John Byrne intended to have a character named Dreadface appear in the ''NextMen'' comic as an exaggeration of the type of name MarvelComics gave characters. A few months before the character was due to make his first appearance, an issue of ''Comicbook/FantasticFour'' came out [[ParodyFailure featuring a character called Dreadface]]. The ''Next Men'' character was hurriedly renamed.

* An interesting example is the comic book ''Steed & Mrs Peel'', based on the TV series ''Series/TheAvengers''. While ATV came up with the title ''first'', they [[Comicbook/TheAvengers can't use it for a comic]].