Washington Business Journal Quotes Josh Gerben About Netflix’s “Space Force” Trademark Filings

Following the release of its first season of Space Force, Netflix recently filed trademark applications for the show name in various countries around the world. If the entertainment giant were to seek registration for “Space Force” in the United States, they could run into barriers with the actual military service.

Josh Gerben discusses the potential implications of both entities selling merchandise in the future:

“[Trademark law] is not really designed to protect the companies, it’s protecting consumers from being confused as to the source of a product. So if I was to buy a Space Force T-shirt and think the U.S. government was selling it, but, in fact, it was being sold by somebody else, then that’s kind of where you get trademark infringement.”

“The thing about trademark law is that there’s so much gray area. Any of these things could be problematic in some way.”

“I don’t know if Netflix is really looking for a fight with the U.S. government, and I don’t think the U.S. government is looking for a fight with Netflix. A lot of times these things will depend upon where folks feel like they could draw a line and be comfortable as far as what they want to spend money on lawyers and litigation on.”

Source: Cordell, Carten. “Who owns the trademark for ‘Space Force?'” BizJournals.com. 10 June 2020.