Airboy Rights Question.

[Strannik]

I am a big fan of the Eclipse version of Airboy and I've been wondering about something. From what I understood, Eclipse acquired the rights to Airboy, Skywolf, Heap, etc from Hillman. However, if this chart (http://www.bromsun.com/practices/copyright-portfolio-development/flowchart.htm) is to be believed, the Hillman characters lapsed into public domain years before Eclipse published their version of Airboy. So, did Eclipse actually acquire the rights or did they merely take advantage of the public domain status of Hillman properties?

[swinebread]

Gosh I don't know, but I thought that Todd mcfarlane bought the rights when Eclipse went belly up, so there must be something going on.

[Iangould]

I am a big fan of the Eclipse version of Airboy and I've been wondering about something. From what I understood, Eclipse acquired the rights to Airboy, Skywolf, Heap, etc from Hillman. However, if this chart (http://www.bromsun.com/practices/copyright-portfolio-development/flowchart.htm) is to be believed, the Hillman characters lapsed into public domain years before Eclipse published their version of Airboy. So, did Eclipse actually acquire the rights or did they merely take advantage of the public domain status of Hillman properties?

You may be confusing trademark and copyright.

It's possible that even though the original Airboy stories had gone into the public domain Hillman had maintained the trademarks.

This would be similar to the Tarzan situation where the original ERB novels are now in the public domain but Burroughs' descendants still own the trademark.

[MWGallaher]

I don't think there's any way that Hillman could have kept the trademarks. Even a non-defunct company (and I don't think Hillman has existed as a corporate entity for many long decades now) loses the rights to a trademark if they don't use it. If a trademark is "dead", a modern company can start applying it to a new commercial product and claim it for their own, which is apparently what Eclipse did. A search at the US Patent and Trademark page shows that Eclipse did trademark "Airboy" for use in comic books, but that trademark is now dead.
Todd MacFarlane may have bought the trademark from Eclipse, but he hasn't used it. He might fuss if someone else published a new Airboy (based, or not based, on Hillman's public domain stories), but he'd probably have a hard time convincing courts he hadn't abandoned the mark, unless he's put out some Airboy-branded products that I'm not aware of. His purchase didn't give him exclusive rights to the mark for all time, because even the current holders of any trademark aren't granted rights like that. "Use it or lose it" is the law, as I understand it.

[swinebread]

"Use it or lose it" is the law, as I understand it.
Yeah, isn't what happend to Captain Marvel and Captain Mar-Vell?

[Strannik]

I don't think there's any way that Hillman could have kept the trademarks. Even a non-defunct company (and I don't think Hillman has existed as a corporate entity for many long decades now) loses the rights to a trademark if they don't use it. If a trademark is "dead", a modern company can start applying it to a new commercial product and claim it for their own, which is apparently what Eclipse did. A search at the US Patent and Trademark page shows that Eclipse did trademark "Airboy" for use in comic books, but that trademark is now dead.
Todd MacFarlane may have bought the trademark from Eclipse, but he hasn't used it. He might fuss if someone else published a new Airboy (based, or not based, on Hillman's public domain stories), but he'd probably have a hard time convincing courts he hadn't abandoned the mark, unless he's put out some Airboy-branded products that I'm not aware of. His purchase didn't give him exclusive rights to the mark for all time, because even the current holders of any trademark aren't granted rights like that. "Use it or lose it" is the law, as I understand it.

Interesting.... This is even better then I thought. Thank you.

[Chris CCL]

Here's a recent (and excellent) podcast about Airboy form The Golden Age of Comic Books podcast:
http://www.goldenagecomics.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=92907

Chris