Last month, if you recall, Marvel teamed up with DaimlerChrysler to launch an online campaign called “Choose Your Adventure” to help promote the Jeep Patriot. That doesn’t sit well with the company that owns the rights to the Choose Your Own Adventure series of children’s books.
On Tuesday, Chooseco LLC filed a lawsuit for trademark infringement against DaimlerChrysler, Marvel Entertainment and two other companies, alleging the two slogans are too similar, making them virtually indistinguishable. The publisher, which recently began reissuing the R.A. Montgomery books, charges that the car maker is aiming its campaign at men in their 20s and 30s — the very demographic that would’ve grown up reading the series.
“What we feel is that Jeep is trying to piggyback on the really positive associations of adventure and opportunity and choice that the former fans — the original fan base — had associated with Choose Your Own Adventure,” Chooseco President Shannon Gilligan told The Associated Press.
The “Choose Your Adventure” campaign, which launched in early February, invited customers to submit dialogue and plotlines for an online Jeep Patriot-oriented comic, produced in conjunction with Marvel Comics. According to Media Daily News, the winning submissions will be collected in a 28-page comic, due sometime this spring and shipped to some 100,000 people.
According to the AP article, a cease-and-desist request was sent to the Chrysler Group on March 16. However, the campaign’s website remains active.
“Obviously, they’re looking for money,” Chrysler spokesman Jason Vines told the AP. “We’d offered to link our site, which gets nine katrillion times more traffic, to their site.”
Besides DaimlerChrysler and Marvel, the lawsuit also names as defendants BBDO Detroit, the auto maker’s marketing agency, and Organic, Inc., an online marketing and design company.
March 30th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Looks like Chrysler will have to pay I bet.
March 30th, 2007 at 10:26 am
“Obviously, they’re looking for money,” Chrysler spokesman Jason Vines told the AP. “We’d offered to link our site, which gets nine katrillion times more traffic, to their site.”
Wow, how professional.
March 30th, 2007 at 10:32 am
It’s a really close one… a link to their site? by offering that, arent they admitting something? and why go after marvel? it seems the chrysler people just hired marvel to do art.
I could be totally wrong, lol.
March 30th, 2007 at 10:32 am
^
Yeah, that’s the truth. Not at all arrogant or smug.
March 30th, 2007 at 10:37 am
I actually read The Cave of Time. I died when I went into the cave and ended up on the Titanic. Stupid choose your own adventure…
March 30th, 2007 at 10:40 am
They went after Marvel because Marvel was an active party to the actionable offense. If they were suing over a Chrysler TV ad they’d go after Chrysler and the ad agency.
March 30th, 2007 at 10:47 am
Meh, this has cash garb written all over it. Just change the name of the contest.
March 30th, 2007 at 10:50 am
god i loved those choose your own adventure books….those were a great read!
March 30th, 2007 at 11:04 am
No opinion on this lawsuit, but dang I loved those books. My favorite was The Lost Jewels of Nabooti
March 30th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
marvel and dc have so many ridiculoous phrases and terms trademarked and sue people at the drop of a hat so I applaud this.
its nice to see them get a taste of their own medicine every once and a while
March 30th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
It’s always something. Marvel really should be left out of this, but the name “MARVEL” obviously carries some distinction and weight. This should be between Chrysler and the Chooseco book people.
March 30th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Of course they’re looking for money. But if Chrysler is trading on their name (and it seems like they are), they deserve compensation.
March 30th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Well, I guess that explains the Jeep in ASM #539 … Chrysler and Marvel are in cahoots. **rolls eyes**
March 30th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Time Machines were better.
Seriously though, this is a legal issue far beyond my ken, and I’m guessing beyond the knowledge of most people here.
March 30th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
I loved those books when I was a kid. I wonder if I still have any of them…
March 30th, 2007 at 9:00 pm
Aren’t there other books just like Choose Your Own Adventures? Why not sue them?
March 31st, 2007 at 10:35 am
One is an ad for an expensive automobile I’ll never own, the other is a book series I loved when I was in elementary school. Seems pretty easily distinguishable to me.
March 31st, 2007 at 11:58 am
God I hate that this world has become so sue happy - I read a few of those books as a kid and I didn’t make any connection - maybe it because no one has bought one of those books in the last 5 years - they need the cash
March 31st, 2007 at 3:18 pm
I’m not sure if they can sue the publishers of other, similarly structured, books. I think that’d be a violation of patent, not trademark, and I don’t know if CYOA has one.
They’re suing Chrysler for infringement of trademark. I don’t think it’s particularly unreasonable. The slogan “Choose Your Adventure” evokes fond memories of those books in me — it starts the selling conversation off on the right foot for them with a certain segment of the audience. And while there’s certainly no confusion of the product, I don’t think that’s a necessary element of trademark infringement.
March 31st, 2007 at 3:23 pm
Urgh, are you serious?
This is so lame.
I didn’t even think of those books when I saw those ads.
Then again, considering that Marvel DOES sue left and right (City of Heroes, anyone?) I suppose that this is fitting.
March 31st, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Good for Choose your Own Adventure! The Jeep campaign is blatantly taking their slogan and ideas with no regard for the people that actually put those books out.
April 1st, 2007 at 1:27 am
It sounds like the big ol’ car company didn’t take the lil’ ol’ book publisher from Vermont very seriously.
Don’t mess with, um… Vermont!
April 1st, 2007 at 1:58 pm
Katrillion?
April 2nd, 2007 at 4:17 am
Hmm, I wonder if I can still go ahead with my plans for a series of books called “Multiple Choice Adventures”.
I was working on something about magic and a wizard school but someone pointed out that that was taken.
What’s next, cloned dinosaurs? Deadly robots from the future? Grown men in capes fighting crime with superpowers? Sheesh. I feel like I’m wasting my time in my writerly aspirations.
April 2nd, 2007 at 5:22 am
Choose your own adventure is choosing to adventure territory which will bring them free publicity, and only that, sales of there books today are so low, they should be thanking Chrysler for the traffic.
April 2nd, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Oh man I LOVED Choose Your Own Adventure when I was a kid. My mom would get them for me if I was good that week. I even had the Cave of Time. I haven’t seen the jeep yet to even comment on that, but if there is a lawsuit then it has some merit or a judge would have thrown it out. Anyhoo…….do they still make Choose Your Own Adventures?
April 3rd, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Bring back Choose Your Own Adventure books!
April 5th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
They’re suing Marvel because the slogan is close to their own publishing title. Marvel is a publisher of books and comics with a contest “Choose Your Adventure”. “Choose Your Own Adventure” is a the title of a published series. I could see where there could be problems. If CYOA didn’t sue over this, they could lose the trademark/ intellectual property.
April 5th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
So if CYOA came out with a book featuring Peter Piker, the Amazing Spider-Guy, Marvel wouldn’t see anything wrong with that?