US Registry cancels Marvel and DC's shared "SUPER HEROES" trade marks

I was very surprised to learn that Marvel and DC, industry titans and rivals, have for many decades jointly owned a number of US Federal trade marks for the term SUPER HEROES (Nos. 1179067, 1140452, 3674448) and SUPER HERO (No. 825835). 

These trade mark registrations had been in force for decades, and protected a variety of goods including t-shirts, costumes, and toy figures. 

The combined forces behind Superman, Batman, Spiderman and Ironman were no match however for Superbabies Limited, a UK company that has recently successfully cancelled these USTM registrations. 

Looking into the saga, it appears that DC sent a cease and desist letter and “attempted to block” the UK business' efforts to promote SUPER BABIES (“a team of superpowered superhero babies”) in light of their earlier registered rights in SUPER HEROES. Superbabies Limited therefore retaliated by filing a Petition to Cancel the SUPER HEROES registrations - a copy of which can be seen here. Pleasingly, for a battle of this genre, it opens with the suitably epic claim that “We live in a world of super heroes. For the better part of a century, super heroes and the superhero genre have ruled the imagination and inspired millions to achieve greatness”. 

In their Petition Superbabies Limited claimed that “Over the years, DC and Marvel have used their SUPER HERO registrations not to prevent confusion, but to stifle competition and exclude others from the marketplace”. 

In a suitably dramatic plot twist, the twin ‘Goliaths’ did not even respond to Superbabies Limited's challenge. Marvel and DC failed to reply to the Cancellation Petition by their July 2024 deadline, and so the Registry has just issued their decision that USTM registration Nos. 1179067, 1140452, 3674448 and 825835 will be cancelled in due course. 

Marvel and DC have not commented on these cancellations publicly so far, or explained their decision to let the registrations fall. It may be that they accepted that the term had indeed become “a generic term that should not be protected as a trademark” (Petition paragraph 6) - or perhaps they simply wanted to avoid the negative publicity of ‘Superman fighting the Superbabies’.