San Diego Comic Con Wins The Comic Con Phrase Battle
Since Comic Con season is coming up soon after being cancelled last year due to a pandemic, I wondered what ever happened with the battle of the Comic Con’s - San Diego Comic Con and Salt Lake Comic Con. A lawsuit was filed in August 2014 by SDCC seeking millions of dollars in damages against SLCC due to infringement on the phrase Comic Con. SDCC feels that Comic Con is theirs and no one else can use it (except that there are multiple other Conventions already using the phrase) In a federal court ruling from April 15, 2019 that had been appealed up to the Ninth District, a decision was finally made on April 20, 2020. a jury has made a decision in favor of San Diego Comic Con.
While SDCC was seeking $12 million in damages from Salt Lake Comic Con, which is laughable at best, a federal judge only ordered SLCC to pay $20k in damages regarding the Comic Con trademark. But the judge also ordered SLCC to pay some hefty attorney fees. The judge initially awarded SDCC “just” $3.7 million in attorney fees. SDCC initially asked for a total of $5.2 million ($4.99 million plus $243k for consultant fees), but ended up being awarded the $3.7 million plus $212k in fees for a total of $3.9 million. SLCC appealed the large attorney fee amounts and on April 20, 2020 a federal judge upheld the $3.7 million but allowed the $212k to be vacated.
Salt Lake Comic Con’s argument for using the phrase Comic Con was:
Our position is that the phrases “comic con,” “comicon” and even “comic-con” are generic and are abbreviations for the term “comic convention.” This has been a common expression since 1964, six years before San Diego Comic-Con even existed. When used with another set of words such as “Salt Lake,” “Big Apple,” Chicago” or “New York,” they become a name that has protection and exclusivity.
The federal court must’ve felt the same and that Salt Lake Comic Con didn’t willfully infringe upon the Comic Con trademark and so the judge only ordered the organizers of Salt Lake Comic Con, now known as FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention, to only pay a paltry $20,000 in damages.
The Credible Nerds have always felt that this was a ridiculous lawsuit in a couple of ways. Trademarking the phrase Comic Con or Comic Convention is way too generic for SDCC to get bent out of shape over. Also, there are several other Comic Con’s in the country that weren’t being sued by SDCC, with New York Comic Con, Phoenix Comic Con, and Denver Comic Con being some of the largest in addition to Salt Lake Comic Con previous to the lawsuit being filed. To get $20k in damages is more than what SDCC deserves. Plus I can guarantee that these other Conventions aren’t going to be sued by SDCC for damages for using the Comic Con phrase in their name. While Denver and Phoenix have since dropped the Comic Con phrase due to the fear of this lawsuit, New York Comic Con, still remains the same - as it should.
If you were to ask even the average fan, much less the general public, they wouldn’t know the difference between SDCC, SLCC, NYCC, or even the Fan Expo’s and Wizard World’s. A lot of the people I casually talk to about Comic Con’s actually believe that they are like the circus and they travel around from city to city and that they are the same company regardless of the name. They aren’t going to care if SDCC and SLCC are different companies much less not go to SLCC because it’s not the same company as SDCC or vice versa.
I believe that these other Comic Conventions were around even before SLCC, but yet weren’t threatened with a lawsuit by SDCC. So why the pettiness and vitriol from SDCC? Well, it has been well documented that Salt Lake Comic Con was, in a matter of a couple of years, all of a sudden a big player in the Comic Convention world with it’s numbers increasing every year. SLCC was making a play on SDCC’s nerd territory, as they became the closest geographical Con to SDCC and were starting to get the big names. In 2015, SLCC had Chris Evans, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, and Hayley Atwell, among other big names appear at SLCC. Remember that Avenger’s Age of Ultron was released in May 2015, and the hype for the MCU was insane in 2015.
Yes, it’s Salt Lake Comic Con
NYCC had 167,000 fans over a four day weekend.
San Diego Comic Con had 130,000 fans, but an organizer states that they really had over 300,000….ok
Salt Lake Comic Con had 127,000 fans over a three day period.
Fan Expo Canada in Toronto reported 127,000 fans over three days as well.
Those were the top conventions in 2015.
SDCC filed their lawsuit in 2014. Regardless of SDCC’s actions and a federal judge’s decision, it will always be Salt Lake Comic Con to me.