Nintendo Lost 'Maricar' Patent Objection Prior to Recent Copyright Infringement Claim

Just team up with them. Easy bit of money.

Nintendo can be a bit zealous when it comes to legal proceedings but I agree with this one. If an accident or serious injury happened at Maricar, given the costumes, it's not a stretch for a typical consumer to believe they are associated with Nintendo. Sure Nintendo would win a lawsuit as they are not associated but from a public relations standpoint it could damage their reputation, especially if God forbid someone got killed.

The lengths that Nintendo go to to shut down people celebrating their games and characters is bordering on ridiculous. I've never heard a single person EVER refer to Mario Kart as 'Maricar'. Good on the PO for chucking it out. Hopefully this second claims gets chucked out too, as I'm pretty certain that dressing up as characters falls under 'parody' or 'fair use'.

@markie7235 not really. To particpate in these kind of activites you usually have to sign something extreme saying you understand the risk of death etc etc and the company is not responsible. Not sure if they hold and water in court, of course, but I had to sign one when I went to a unofficial Halo-themed paintballing event for a stag do.

The name isn't an issue, but profiting off of them wearing their character image is. Plus as I keep saying, Nintendo would be dragged into a PR disaster if someone caused serious injury whilst doing this, despite the fact that they aren't linked to the company.

Didn't someone crash one of these recently?

@BLP_Software They did yes, into a police box or something.

Edit: http://kotaku.com/tourist-crashes-real-mario-kart-into-tokyo-police-box-1793029382

To be honest, I thought Nintendo would lose this case. I'm sure they'll appeal.

@markie7235 The only people signing those documents would be those participating. I think @Mogster actually has a valid point for this potentially harming Nintendo's reputation. Think more along the lines of people driving like idiots, running other people off the road, or causing an accident and injuring or killing someone else - not someone else in a kart that signed a release from, just an ordinary citizen. They may not understand it is not an official Nintendo activity.

I can also see this becoming a bigger deal now that this was ruled as legal as well. I don't think Nintendo really had a case with the name "Maricar", but as the article says, it does open the door for other companies to use Nintendo's IP without authorization, which I don't think is a good thing.

@Mogster Not every country has a Fair Use clause that's as loose as in the US. Japan, and Germany btw, have very strict copyright laws. This carting event would break our (german) copyright laws and definately japanese copyright laws as well. Since it's a japanese company, there's no fair use to protect them - and rightfully so.

We'll see what happens when the next game I make is called The Legend of Zelder. Not even close to Zelda see!

My hero will be named Lunk and wear a brown tunic. He will wield the hero sword and use the master shield.

@Switch81tch Perhaps I phrased it incorrectly, but the costumes are certainly using Nintendo's IP - whether licensed or not, who knows. I'm simply agreeing with the point that others made that this has the potential to look bad on Nintendo, and with this ruling, may make it easier for others to do the same in the future.

For once Nintendo is in the right. Now that the company is expanding into theme park attractions, this represents a problem for them. It gives people the impression that this is licensed by Nintendo and could hurt the company if they're planning on having any Mario Kart attractions at Universal.

@markie7235 So the only way to strop it is to ban teh use of any costumes of Nintendo characters? This makes zero sense. Anyone can get injure wearing any other company's mascot-related costumes and is fine, but not Nintendo.

I'm glad that they the lost the patent objection.

@DiscoGentleman That's simply not true. I lived in Japan for 4 years and not once I heard such an abbreviation. Maybe MarioCar (in romaji, mario kaa).

The service, albeit a bit misleading, is perfectly within the realm of fair use.

@Switch81tch Agreed - not saying this is a clear cut case that is doing irreparable harm to Nintendo's image. Just that I understand Nintendo's point. This is why I'm not a judge or attorney =) Dealing with crap like this all day would drive me insane.

...I knew it, they had the super horn!..

@SH007ME
(Got Super Horn from Random Item)
OHOHOHOHO....!!!
WHAM...!!! (Use the Super Horn)
Nintendo was deflected by MariCar.

For once I side with the other company and not Nintendo. These people didn't violate any trademark infringement. They merely dress in costumes and do delivery, Nintendo needs to stop being so head over heel on these kind of things. So what's next, Nintendo suing people for dressing as Mario and gang for Halloween? This company needs to take a chill pill.

@maceng the difference is Maricar is a company using Nintendo IPs, not likeness but actual costumes of the characters to promote their own business without permission. They are profiting off of Nintendo without authorization to do so. I cannot say whether true in Japan but in the US that infringes on copyright. It also implies a relationship to consumers between the two companies that does not exist.

Don't confuse dressing up for Halloween let's say versus this. The one is done by an individual not representing a company for profit and the other situation is exploiting the creative properties of another company for financial gain. There's a big difference

Dressing up for halloween = fine.

Releasing an adult DVD featuring men and women in Nintendo costumes = not fine

Offering and promoting a service allowing people to race on the streets in Nintendo costumes and naming your service after one of their games with a 2 letters missing, and a k changed to c = not fine

One of these days they will going to sue all italian plumbers called Mario...

a lot of people here don't seem to have any understanding of copyright law it seems

IF you are making money using the likeness or any part of someones elses IP without their permission that is ILLEGAL even if it's dressing as a character from a video game and kart racing or even doing a review of a game

Nintendo are well within their rights to protect their IP's in what ever way they see fit, now i'm not saying they couldn't be more lenient especially to reviewers on youtube for example but if a group of people are going around dressing as mario characters and charging people to see them race then even if you call it Maricar it's still using their IP and making money off it

so i agree with Nintendo 100% they should fight to protect their IP and i hope they win because it would just leave the door open for ANYONE to make unlicensed products on not only Nintendo IP's but ANY IP and the market would be flooded with cheap knock off games and look what happened the last time they did that

that's right the Video Game Crash of 1983 because the market was flooded with too many knock off/reskins of games and consoles

Sigh Nintendo always snaps to full attack mode. They must know this is a thing at all because people love their stuff and having goofy fun with their stuff is in no way going to hurt their sales or image.

If anything it'd be cooler of them to offer licensing a sweet price. Then Maricars guests would have a little more fun, and Nintendo would have some say over the use of the actual and to some degree implied use of their IP.

I mean they are dressed up like Mario Kart so I get where Nintendo is coming from but honestly at this point just buy them out. That way they get a cut for using their ip likeness and people can keep karting.

Wait, the company effectively rents Nintendo themed costumes for monetary gain? I don't imagine what even the most fanbrained logic could find divisive about Nintendo's stand here - the case is gloriously shameless. I'd understand seeing such a thing in the broad post-Soviet lands, but doing this unlicensed stuff in Tokyo with a straight face? Why not rent an office and facility grounds right next to Nintendo HQ while they're at it?

@nhSnork Well, they're just costumes. I see them in stores all the time.

@Yhdekskymmenen but when you launch a cart rental service called "Maricar" with Mario costumes, that's one too many coincidences. Not to mention that if people start associating it with Nintendo as a result, the latter will end up with an audience holding them responsible for things they have no hand in nor control over. And much as I want fiction and companies sponsoring it into existence to stay above audience ignorance, the reality still paints this scenario as very bad news in many companies' eyes - sadly not without a reason.

@DiscoGentleman
First, quoting Wikipedia for a "legal" basis or court-ruling, or not-fair usage of an expression would not hold water, specially in Japan. Second, this is a company that obtained a legal name, under which I imagine (as a almost certain) that went thru a screening process and that all likelihood of Nintendo's beloved Mario Kart game was not seen or considered.

Still, yes, I might have blunder or over-assumed that such a expression, marika- , didn't apply to the Mario Kart franchise (specially since I was in Japan 20 years ago).

Anyhow, cheers! Just hope that Nintendo doesn't get his way. Japan's laws are very lax and usually take its own sweet time for rulings (I heard a case took 30 years for a conviction).

In contrast to everybody else, that guy in the Yoshi costume looked like he didn't want to be there.

Why can't people make money from. their own ideas instead of leeching off Nintendo? Or if it's a great licensing idea then actually license it from Nintendo.

@retro_player_22 Their name is taken from Mario Kart, the karts they hire out are beset on Mario Kart and when you add the fact that they are also charging customers to hire out Nintendo costumes (unlicensed) there is no defense.

While I feel they target youtubers too hard - this is completely justified.

Any accident that could happen will be put solely on Nintendo! People will just see the characters driving around and associate it with their brand and company.

@retro_player_22 actually - they are! They are illegally using their characters, associated with a near identical name while making "profit" from doing so.

Nintendo also runs bad publicity if accidents or any other damage is caused due to negligence as its their characters being used.

I'm totally with Nintendo! Its bad PR waiting to happen and its their characters and IP that is being ripped off. Because its missing an "O" hardly makes it feel right.

Think they need to give up the costumes goes too far, or at least alter them a bit.

Nintendo will win. Really not even worth reporting on.

@readyletsgo not that easy. Very much concern would have to be given to reliability. Nintendo would probably have to redesign the hardware and would want them off real streets. This would be exactly what they are already very likely doing at the Universal theme parks already.

"it rejected Nintendo's objection to the Maricar trademark . . . 'Maricar' isn't a commonly used abbreviation of Mario Kart, and . . . it's "an unassociated trademark"."