Salt Lake Comic Con just lost its superpowers — but not that much money.
On Friday, San Diego Comic-Con won a jury verdict in its trademark infringement battle with the much smaller and later event.
“While it is likely that organizers of the Utah event will appeal, Friday’s verdict culminates a testy squabble that began three years ago when Salt Lake’s producers drove around downtown San Diego for two days during the July convention in a $200,000 Audi R8 Spyder wrapped with an image of ‘Salt Lake Comic Con,’” reported The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Organizers of the original San Diego convention cheered.
“San Diego Comic Convention has used the Comic-Con trademarks in connection with our comics and popular arts conventions for almost 50 years,” they said in a statement.
“We have invested substantial time, talent and resources in our brand resulting in worldwide recognition of the Comic-Con convention held annually in San Diego … From the beginning all that we asked of the defendants was to stop using our Comic-Con trademarks. Today we obtained a verdict that will allow us to achieve this.”
The Union-Tribune said the case, in federal court, began after Dan Farr of Dan Farr Productions and Bryan Brandenberg ignored letters to cease-and-desist using the name.
“San Diego Comic-Con had sought as much as $12 million in damages from Farr, Brandenburg and Salt Lake Comic Con, but the jury awarded them only $20,000, concluding that the trademark infringement was not willful,” the paper said.