From the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation:

The Walt Disney Co. has applied for a trademark on the name “Seal Team 6,” the name of the unit of specially trained Navy SEALs that killed Osama bin Laden in a raid in Pakistan earlier this month.

Three applications filed May 3 — the day after the raid — with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office by Disney Enterprises Inc. state an intention to use the mark for a range of products, including entertainment and education services, clothing, toys, games and Christmas stockings.

And Sony, apparently, tried to patent trademark “shock and awe” the day after the invasion of Iraq.

Incidentally, the etymology of “patent” and “patently” explains the relationship between the noun and the adverb (which I’d always wondered about):

patent

late 14c., “open letter or document from some authority,” shortened form of Anglo-Fr. lettre patent (also in M.L. (litteræ) patentes), lit. “open letter” (late 13c.), from O.Fr. patente (adj.), from L. patentum (nom. patens) “open, lying open,” prp. of patere “lie open, be open,” from PIE *pet– “to spread” (cf. Gk. petannynai “to spread out,” petalon “leaf,” O.N. faðmr “embrace, bosom,” O.E. fæðm “embrace, fathom”).

Brend an Kiley has worked as a child actor in New Orleans, as a member of the junior press corps at the 1988 Republican National Convention, and, for one happy April, as a bootlegger’s assistant in Nicaragua....

5 replies on “Disney Tries to Cash in on the Navy SEALS Who Killed Bin Laden”

  1. Nothing like a four-day-old story to start off the day (note the date on the Gawker article).

    The etymology of “patent” was somewhat interesting, though.

  2. Speaking of classy, how about those Bush students filling out the thread back on your teacher-decries-rich-racists shocker story from the other day? Notably more civil and nuanced than the likes of us.

  3. I’m confused by this. Doesn’t the fact that these terms have been in the public domain for decades count as prior art? And if it’s not public domain, doesn’t the fact that an organization has been using it for years count as prior art? I don’t understand the legal principles that make this possible.

  4. Trademark is different from Patent, it seems Disney is going for a trademark. Though that seems almost as equally strange.

  5. SEAL Team 6 is no longer called SEAL Team 6. They have been known as United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group or DEVGRU since 1987.

Comments are closed.