All Elite Wrestling trademarks filed

[chokeout]

10 minutes ago, IANdrewDiceClay said:

Austin was mad not to go after the Stone Cold name. Its on every DVD they've released that it was his wife that created the name. That should not be theirs to own.

I'm shocked his ex wife hasn't gone after a cut. That'd be a hell of a pay day.

Didn't Gangrel end up spending most of crisp money on buying his name? One of the few externally licenced characters WWE ever did

[Carbomb]

46 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

A lot of this stuff is down to marketing/merchandising though.

WWE owned the rights to produce merchandise of the name Cody Rhodes. Cody doesn't own that. Because, legal name or not, the merchandise-able property "Cody Rhodes" is a WWE creation. In Brandi's case, she never used the name Rhodes in WWE - she was either Brandi or Eden Stiles, so they never owned or attempted to own it. Dusty didn't create the surname "Rhodes", he created and owned the name "Dusty Rhodes" just as WWE created and owned the name "Cody Rhodes". Is it a dick move? Sure. But is the law on WWE's side? It's probably going to lean that way.

 

Surely the fact that it is his legal name, and he's been going by it since before he ever went into wrestling, would put the law strongly in his favour? 

Also, he first wrestled under that name in OVW - whilst they were a feeder promotion for WWE, they weren't ever actually owned by them, so could there be an argument for prior usage?

CORRECTION: He actually used "Runnels" in OVW. So that puts paid to that.

22 minutes ago, chokeout said:

Didn't Gangrel end up spending most of crisp money on buying his name? One of the few externally licenced characters WWE ever did

Yeah, wouldn't he have had to buy it from White Wolf?

Edited February 15, 2019 by Carbomb

[wordsfromlee]

Why didn’t Cody just change his name by deed poll to John Cena instead?

Edited February 15, 2019 by wordsfromlee

[Carbomb]

1 minute ago, wordsfromlee said:

Why didn’t Cody just change his name by deed poll to John Cena instead?

It's political correctness gone mad, I tell you.

[chokeout]

3 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

Yeah, wouldn't he have had to buy it from White Wolf?

Yep. When he debuted was he pushed as being a character from White Wolf. How much crossover was there? Such an odd relationship

 

9 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

Surely the fact that it is his legal name, and he's been going by it since before he ever went into wrestling, would put the law strongly in his favour? 

Seems his legal name is 'Cody Runnels Rhodes' (see delightful tweet below). A quick check shows that WWE have had the trademark since 2007. When did he start using the name in OVW? 

[Tamura]

39 minutes ago, IANdrewDiceClay said:

Austin was mad not to go after the Stone Cold name. Its on every DVD they've released that it was his wife that created the name. That should not be theirs to own.

Who originally came with a name is largely irrelevant. What value did the name have at the time it was created? Absolutely nothing, although it obviously had potential value. The WWF promoted the name Stone Cold Steve Austin using the vast power of their marketing machine, they gave it value.

[Carbomb]

Sorry, corrected it earlier. He debuted as "Runnels" in OVW in 2006. He only changed to "Rhodes" when he got called up to WWE in 2007. 

EDIT: To @chokeout

Edited February 15, 2019 by Carbomb

[IANdrewDiceClay]

14 minutes ago, Tamura said:

Who originally came with a name is largely irrelevant. What value did the name have at the time it was created? Absolutely nothing, although it obviously had potential value. The WWF promoted the name Stone Cold Steve Austin using the vast power of their marketing machine, they gave it value.

As they do every name on their TV. As the Warrior proved, its his property, due to the fact those WWE contracts are so shockingly one sided that if you go for them, they rarely win in the end. The contracts are just not fair, and the monopoly nature of pro wrestling means you essentially have to sign them to make a living.

[Carbomb]

22 minutes ago, Tamura said:

Who originally came with a name is largely irrelevant. What value did the name have at the time it was created? Absolutely nothing, although it obviously had potential value. The WWF promoted the name Stone Cold Steve Austin using the vast power of their marketing machine, they gave it value.

I don't know, man. Look at CM Punk. The value he had before joining WWE was largely confined to the indies; he was pretty niche. I don't think anyone would argue that the overwhelmingly larger part of his name value is because of WWE. But he came up with it before joining them, and as such he's now able to use it wherever he likes. Same could be argued to a certain degree for Rob Van Dam (although ECW's reach was much greater than the later indies).

Sure, it's not quite the same thing, as Austin was in the WWF at the time of the nick-name's creation, but I think Punk's example demonstrates that giving a wrestler's name value doesn't give WWE a claim to it.

[PunkStep]

36 minutes ago, chokeout said:

What a charming response!

[Joe Blog]

To be fair if someone was belittling another person by assuming they knew everything about me I would probably call them a fuckface as well 

[Tamura]

56 minutes ago, IANdrewDiceClay said:

As they do every name on their TV. As the Warrior proved, its his property, due to the fact those WWE contracts are so shockingly one sided that if you go for them, they rarely win in the end. The contracts are just not fair, and the monopoly nature of pro wrestling means you essentially have to sign them to make a living.

Largely irrelevant to your original point, which was that Stone Cold's wife had a valid claim to the trademark. 
 

45 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

I don't know, man. Look at CM Punk. The value he had before joining WWE was largely confined to the indies; he was pretty niche. I don't think anyone would argue that the overwhelmingly larger part of his name value is because of WWE. But he came up with it before joining them, and as such he's now able to use it wherever he likes. Same could be argued to a certain degree for Rob Van Dam (although ECW's reach was much greater than the later indies).

Sure, it's not quite the same thing, as Austin was in the WWF at the time of the nick-name's creation, but I think Punk's example demonstrates that giving a wrestler's name value doesn't give WWE a claim to it.

CM Punk, Rob Van Dam and plain old Steve Austin all had name recognition based on their prior use of those names. My point is that Jeanie Clarke simply coming up with the name "Stone Cold Steve Austin" in a conversation at home doesn't come anyone close to that threshold. The name itself had zero value at that point in time, it was only as a result of the WWF's promotion of the name that the brand name acquired value. Coming up with a name ≠ trademark ownership.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

29 minutes ago, Tamura said:

Largely irrelevant to your original point, which was that Stone Cold's wife had a valid claim to the trademark. 

Aye. The bloke who has proof they didnt invent the gimmick has nothing to do with the bloke who sued them proving they didnt invent the gimmick.

[Tamura]

7 minutes ago, IANdrewDiceClay said:

Aye. The bloke who has proof they didnt invent the gimmick has nothing to do with the bloke who sued them proving they didnt invent the gimmick.

Except the two cases are not in any way similar. The WWF's trademark case against the Warrior involved the use of the name "Ultimate Warrior" (which he certainly didn't have the right to use), costume, use of face paint and mannerisms. As Hellwig acknowledges, it was unsuccessful due to his prior use of the name Dingo Warrior replete with costume, face paint and mannerisms. There was no comparable prior use of the "Stone Cold" moniker.

[wordsfromlee]

2 hours ago, Carbomb said:

I don't know, man. Look at CM Punk. The value he had before joining WWE was largely confined to the indies; he was pretty niche. I don't think anyone would argue that the overwhelmingly larger part of his name value is because of WWE. But he came up with it before joining them, and as such he's now able to use it wherever he likes. Same could be argued to a certain degree for Rob Van Dam (although ECW's reach was much greater than the later indies).

Sure, it's not quite the same thing, as Austin was in the WWF at the time of the nick-name's creation, but I think Punk's example demonstrates that giving a wrestler's name value doesn't give WWE a claim to it.

Didn't Vince want to change CM Punk's name but then Paul Heyman convinced him otherwise? I'm sure I remember hearing that Vince wanted to have Punk be the poster boy for WWECW when they restarted it and Heyman convinced Vince to let him keep his name because "it's what the original ECW would have done and it's keeping it's spirit alive".